Ethnobotany in the Amazon

The Amazon River watershed covers seven million square kilometres, or nearly 40% of the South American continent. There, more than 40,000 plant species have co-evolved with humans, during the last 32,000 to 39,000 years. Pre-Hispanic Amazonian peoples, integrated with the region’s flora and fauna, knew, understood, and utilized the region’s diverse plant species as a part of their daily routines.

Amazonia’s Changing Population.

Today, as the developers search for natural resources and moves deeper into the Amazonian biome, indigenous “Amerindian” tribes have learned to share the forests with settlers. Many indigenous groups, as a result, have taken up sedentary lifestyles as peasants or campesinos.

Despite industry’s encroachment, more than 400 Amazonian tribes, still live in intimate contact with the rain forests’ botanical treasures, consuming its fruits and healing with its botanical medicines. Amazonian tribes include the Wajapis, Ianomâmi (Yanomami), and Kayapo.Mestizos and caboclos, peoples of mixed heritage,also make up an important part of the Amazon population. Raintree Formulas works with Amazonians to investigate the finest of their botanicals and make them available to customers world-wide.

Ethnobotany in the Amazon.

Amazonian people still live close to the land. Much of the most valuable ethnobotanical information, about the relationships that exist between the Amazonian people and plants, lies in the hands of shamen and campesinos of the region. That information, along with the tropical forests that sustain it, depends upon the wise, sustainable management of the region’s natural and cultural resources.

Amazonian ethnobotanical research first drew worldwide attention around the middle of the twentieth century. Richard Evans Schultes, today known as the "father of ethnobotany," and other ethnobotanists published research on the uses of Amazonian plants. For the first time, the developed world came to see the Amazon’s unique biological resources and their potential impact on the botanical industry.

Why Ethnobotany Thrives in the Amazon.

Why does Amazonia hold the key to so many botanicals useful to humans? The answer lies in the evolution of the Amazon region’s natural biological diversity and the long-standing relation with its indigenous culture.

The Amazon biome, geographically defined as the tropical region within, and surrounding, the Amazon River Basin, has an incredible number of living species. Ten percent of the entire planet’s species live in Amazonia. Tropical forests, as a whole, are rich in the physical resources (water, substrate, and sunlight) required to support abundant and diverse life forms.
 
In tropical regions, intense biological selection pressures, like competition among species, predation, and mutual symbioses,encourage rapid evolution and speciation events. Intense interaction among species generates many biological challenges for plants in the Amazon region.

One hypothesis suggests that species of herbivores and other animals that attack plant tissues encourage plant species diversification. According to the hypothesis, plants must, to survive their attacks, develop novel defenses to allow them to escape their enemies and reproduce. Plant species have evolved many phytochemicals (secondary chemicals produced by plants) that discourage their attackers through chemical actions.

For example, many insect species, like the true bugs (cicadellidhemipterans) and chrysomelid beetles, live in close contact with a tropical tree, Protiumsubserratum. This tree, known by many names, like Shirkillu, Copal Kaspi, Wimonkawe, and Wiñimonko, produces phytochemicals that ward off these attackers. Such new chemicals often appear as mutations, at one point in the species’ evolution, and help ward off insect pests. Amazonian plant species have evolved to generate novel chemical solutions (new chemicals) in defense against the herbivores that attack them.

These phytochemicals, generated by plants in defense from environmental conditions, are the same active compounds that give us with many of the medicinal benefits from pharmaceuticals and natural healing botanicals. For example, acetogenins, found in Raintree Formulas’ Graviola (Annonamuricata), deter many insect species from consuming the plants. Research has shown that the plant chemical of these plants have many potential uses in maintaining health and fighting diseases.

Long-standing, intense interaction between Amazonian peoples and the region’s biota likewise contribute to Amazonia’s world-wide production of important botanicals. The Amazons have one of the largest, most ethnically diverse, and well-conserved traditional cultures. This relationship between Amazonian people and plants has resulted in the discovery and communication of many more important pharmaceutical discoveries from this region.

Biological and Cultural Conservation.

Ethical entrepreneurial organizations, such as Raintree Formulas, play a critical role in the conservation of tropical rainforest species and ethnobotanical information. Through the sale of 100% natural herbal supplements and health products made from plants of the Amazon rainforest, Raintree provides an economic incentive to rainforest inhabitants. Their producers sustainably wildcraft and harvest Raintree's herbs. The sales of these environmentally sound products encourage the region’s inhabitants to appreciate the value of their natural resources and ecosystem. At the same time, sales promote a quality sustainable income to a population adapting to a modernizing world.

Plants offer raw materials and chemicals models for 25 to 50% of prescription drugs. Of the 40,000 known Amazonian plant species, scientists have screened only a small percentage to determine their potential for medicinal use.

Many species have, since colonization by industrial entities, disappeared, and others could follow without careful resource and cultural management strategies. In diverse tropical regions, like the Amazon, commerce, such as that generated by Raintree’s purchase of sustainably harvested products in the region, from campesinos, provides an important incentive to conserve the local plant and animal species. This same incentive encourages Amazonians to continue and conserve their ethnobotanical traditions.

The Amazon region sustains one of the most diverse plant populations in the world. Its native peoples, during tens of thousands of year, have accumulated unequaled knowledge about the uses of these plants, their natural history, and the places where they grow. Raintree Formulas, by providing the Amazon region’s inhabitants with a sustainable economic opportunity, contributes to the conservation of one of the world’s greatest ethnobotanical resources.