The Benefits of Studying Medicinal Plants and Ethnobotany (page 8)
by Kimberly Johnson, MD

Ethnobotanists are racing against time to document and understand traditional knowledge systems before they vanish.

A Sense of Urgency and a Need for Action

As a global community we are now in the midst of a crisis in loss of biological and cultural diversity. Both medicinal plant knowledge systems and the rich biological resources on which they depend are being erased at an unprecedented and unacceptable rate. In many societies and communities undergoing accelerated westernization, fewer young people are interested in devoting themselves to the extensive training required to learn about traditional healing plants. Fortunately, as this decline has accelerated, there has been a resurgent interest in ethnobotany, the study of the cultural knowledge of plants, including plants used for medicines. Ethnobotanists are racing against time to document and understand traditional knowledge systems before they vanish (Balick and Cox 1996).

In the interest of human health, it is prudent to reduce further loss of biological and cultural diversity. Indigenous peoples living side by side with wildland biodiversity hold the key to survival for that diversity and the knowledge of its use. The perceived monetary value of rainforest resources threatens these places and the people, plants, and animals that inhabit them. It is vital that we realize the potential economic value of saving habitats and indigenous cultures, which far outweighs the land's value for farming, ranching, timber, or mining.

The current worldwide pattern of biological and cultural destruction is being called the "sixth great extinction," in reference to the previous five great biodiversity crashes in the earth's history. The last great crash, which doomed the dinosaurs to extinction 65 million years ago, followed the same pattern as those that preceded it -- at each great extinction, it is the most highly evolved (i.e. biologically specialized) and seemingly dominant species that go extinct. If we do not reverse the current extinction trends, we may very well be consigning our species to following the same path taken by the dinosaurs. As apocalyptic as this may sound, history has repeatedly shown that humans are not above the natural order and cannot expect to be spared the dinosaurs' fate if we are so foolhardy as to press the planet to its very limits.

Further Reading

If you are interested in doing further reading on the topic of biodiversity's contribution to modern medicinal products, treatment options, and research tools, ethnobiologist Mark Plotkin's book Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature's Healing Secrets (published in 2000 by Viking Penguin) is highly recommended. With perhaps 90 percent of all species still unidentified -- and only a fraction of the known species on this planet have been surveyed for potentially bioactive compounds suitable for medicinal use -- the pharmacology of nature is a vast treasure house waiting to be tapped. "The value of nature as a source of novel compounds with therapeutic applications increases (rather than diminishes) as technology advances" because today's screening process for drugs is so efficient. An enjoyable and lively book with numerous detailed examples of the many medicinal compounds derived from natural sources currently being investigated.

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References on this page:

Balick, Michael J. and P.A. Cox. 1996. Plants, People, and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany. New York: Scientific American Library.