Ancient Wisdom and Modern ScienceInterview by Bonnie Horrigan Photography by Muriel Weinerman and
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thnobotanist Michael J. Balick, PhD,tands framed by a window of a tradi-ional healer’s house surrounded by aorest of guava, avocado, coconut,ango, and annatto trees in the Enid A.aupt Conservatory at The New Yorkotanical Garden. The healer’s houseresents the use of plants as mediciney the Mayan people of Belize to hun-reds of thousands of visitors a year.
hoto by Muriel Weinerman.
ichael J. Balick, PhD, is the philecologycurator of economic botany and thedirector of the Institute of EconomicBotany at The New York Botanical
Garden. For over three decades, he has studied therelationships among plants, people, culture, andconservation. He works with traditional peoples todocument their plant knowledge and to understandhow they have traditionally managed their naturalresources, helping to develop sustainable utilizationsystems for these resources while always ensuringthat the benefits of such work are shared with thelocal communities. His 56 international expeditionsto date have taken him to places such as Belize,Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecua-dor, Egypt, Federated States of Micronesia, Haiti,Honduras, India, Israel, Jamaica, Mexico, Palau,Peru, Sri Lanka, Trinidad, Thailand, and Venezuela.Dr. Balick, who received his PhD in biology fromHarvard in 1980, also conducts research in NewYork City, studying traditional healing practices inethnic urban communities.
In 1981, he cofounded The New York BotanicalGarden’s Institute of Economic Botany with Sir Ghil-lean Prance, devoted to furthering knowledge of therelationship between plants and people. It has be-come the largest and most active program of itskind in the nation.
Of particular interest to EXPLORE readers, Dr.Balick has been active in several ethnopharmaco-logical investigations—the search for plants withmedicinal properties—particularly in Belize where
ation of the world‘s first ethno-biomedical foresteserve. He cofounded the Ix Chel Tropical Re-earch Foundation, with Drs. Arvigo and Gregoryhropshire, a center in Belize devoted to traditionalealing and cultural preservation, and, from 1986 to996, he helped lead a collaboration between Theew York Botanical Garden and the US Nationalancer Institute to survey Central and South Amer-
ca and the Caribbean for plants with potentialpplications against cancer and AIDS. He is cur-ently involved in an ethnobotanical survey of theederated States of Micronesia, in particular thesland of Pohnpei and its outer atolls, in collabora-ion with the National Tropical Botanical Garden,he Nature Conservancy, the Beth Israel Continuumenter for Health and Healing, The College of Mi-ronesia, local government offices, and the Pohnpeiouncil of Traditional Leaders. A major effort in thisork is to study the devolution of traditional knowl-dge and its impact on the local environment and toake initial steps to reverse the trend.
Dr. Balick currently serves as an adjunct profes-or at Columbia University, New York University,ale University, and City University of New York and
s vice president of botanical research and trainingt The New York Botanical Garden.
EXPLORE interviewed Dr. Michael Balick at hisffice, both indoors and outdoors at the magnificentetting of The New York Botanical Garden duringhe winter of 2005, surrounded by photographs andthnographic specimens obtained during his field
EXPLORE: Let’s start with ethnobotany.What is it?MICHAEL BALICK: Ethnobotany is the
nd people, which involves aspects ofheir culture as well. So it is the study oflants, people, and culture. It’s the science
f understanding how people relate to the
239PLORE May 2006, Vol. 2, No. 3doi:10.1016/j.explore.2006.03.007
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nvironment around them. How theyave related to it historically, how they
nteract with it in the present, and perhapsow they will in the future. We are inter-sted in learning about topics rangingrom how people made and sailed canoesn ancient times, and the rate at whichkills and practices such as these are disap-earing today as more and more voyagingeoples buy fiberglass boats with motorshat are made in another part of the world,o how they gather, grow, and prepare thelants used in their healthcare or diet. Wetudy how globalization erodes knowl-dge of these skills—perhaps readers of thisournal would be most interested in thethnomedical aspect of ethnobotany, howeople use plants for their primary health-are—what their beliefs are, and what sci-nce is behind those beliefs. We then tryo see how those ancient beliefs that sus-ained entire cultures for thousands ofears can serve as a bridge to the present,o help address some of the issueshat society faces today—such as in mod-rn healthcare and natural resourceanagement.The New York Botanical Garden is one
f those great centers of research andearning worldwide where studies are con-ucted not only in ethnobotany but alson a broad range of other areas within thelant sciences—from studies of the flora oforth America to exploration of remoteilderness areas in the Amazon and Andes
n the search for new species of plants andungi, to laboratory studies that allow forhe classification and understanding of thevolution of plants based on their molec-lar structure, and to genomics, with itsearch for the genes that control expres-ion of a certain trait; for example,hether the texture of a fruit is hard or
oft. The Botanical Garden’s research col-ections include a herbarium—a collectionf preserved plants for scientific study—of.2 million specimens, one of the world’snest botanical libraries, and 50 gardensnd collections of living plants across 250cres. Our research agenda comprises ba-ic and applied botanical science, with areat deal of crossover and high degree ofollegiality, and it is only in an atmo-phere such as this that a program in eth-obotany can reach its full potential.XPLORE: Can we talk about things you
ave learned during your expeditions to m
40 EXPLORE May 2006, Vol. 2, No. 3
ome of the more remote areas of theorld?ALICK: Back in the 1970s, I was fortu-ate enough to experience an event thatas rather extraordinary and convincede that the mind-body connection was inany ways key to the healing process. Ias working in the Llanos of Colombia,
he grassy savannah regions populated byhe Guahibo people when a young manas brought in with a montonosa (Bothrops
p.) snakebite of a very serious nature. Theuahibo people are hunters, particularlyocturnally, hunting deer, alligators, ro-ents, and pigs, and this deadly snake cane found all over those grasslands. Theoung man had been bitten in the calf. Hisriends had carried him from their savan-ah hunting ground to our field hospital
n the development community, “Lasaviotas,” a trek of several days, and heas in a toxic delirium. He had severedema, blood was coming through hisores and was in his urine, and he was inhis terrible state of decline. Basically, heas incoherent and dying.
It was a seminaloment innderstanding that ifou could somehowarness the mind ofhe patient as wells the physicaleing, you wouldrobably get betteresults.”Dr. Zethelius, a gifted Colombian physi-
ian, who was fulfilling his national servicen this remote part of his country, immedi-tely injected him with enough antivenomo neutralize any serious bite. But it didn’telp. Now, there happened to be a Guahibohaman in the field hospital, who was thereeing treated for tuberculosis. So the sha-
an went to the doctor and said, “He is one 1
f my people, and he has no idea of whatou are doing. Those needles mean nothingo him. Let me do my traditional snakebitereatment.” So Dr. Zethelius, who comesrom a family of great humanists and intel-ectuals and who understands the impor-ance of traditional medicine, agreed to lethe shaman perform the tobacco ceremony,hich is very common and very tightly em-edded into South American cultures.The smoke blowing treatment involved
inging a song similar to that of a nocturnalird (Uculi,Uculi,Uculi. . . .Uruba,Uruba,U-uba. . . .Chogue,Chogue,Chogue. . . .) whilelowing tobacco smoke and splashing to-acco water on the patient’s extremities.here is nothing invasive about it. Shortlyfter the treatment, the young man cameack into consciousness. Doctor Zetheliusas monitoring his vital signs, and I was sit-
ing there monitoring Doctor Zethelius be-ause, while I had been working with tradi-ional healers for many years, I had nevereen anything like this. After a short while,he young man’s vital signs returned to nor-al, and, within four days, the problem was
onfined to his leg.Dr. Zethelius observed in a paper that
e published together in the Journal of Eth-opharmacology (Modern medicine andhamanistic ritual: a case of positiveynergistic response in the treatment ofnakebite, May 1982 [accessible via http://ciweb.nybg.org/science2/Profile_15.asp])hat he had never seen such a profoundhift from a toxic state to a healthy statesing allopathic medicine alone. He wasonvinced that the patient would haveied had not the shaman intervened. Ourtated hypothesis in that publication washat the synergistic response obtainedhrough treatment of both the mind andhe body simultaneously was responsibleor the patient’s recovery in this very trau-atic case. Obviously, the patient had
trong beliefs and trust in traditional sha-anistic medicine.For me, it was a seminal moment in
nderstanding that, in the delivery ofealthcare, if you could somehow harnesshe mind of the patient as well as the phys-cal being, you would probably get betteresults.
So over the next few years, I thoughtbout this type of synergy—as well as didany others involved in the growth of theind-body movement in the 1980s and
onnection has been recognized and usedy nearly all traditional cultures (but ourwn) that helped set the trajectory of myesearch interests and career.XPLORE: That experience changedour research?ALICK: It did. At the time, I was con-ucting research on native Amazonianalm trees and their value in nutrition andtilization. My mentor at Harvard wasrofessor Richard Evans Schultes. He washe director of the Harvard Botanical Mu-eum and was of the belief that the greatestpportunities for scientific discovery inotany and pharmacology were to beound in the remote and poorly studiedegions of the world. His focus was on themazon Valley. A dozen or more studentsnd research associates were based at theuseum, and there were always people
oming from somewhere interesting andxotic or about to take off on a lengthyeriod of fieldwork. New discoveries—oflants, fungi, and their traditional uses orhemical composition were the topic ofaily conversation, along with tales of ad-enture and unusual experiences while inhe field.
While most of the Museum studentstudied psychoactive plants, I and onether person studied food plants. My goalas to work with indigenous cultures to
dentify plants with potential for wide-pread use in addressing human hungernd poor nutrition. During my undergrad-ate years, I had undertaken botanical re-earch in a small village where childrenied of malnutrition, something I canever forget. So there were no chemically
nduced visions as part of my studies, onlyonsumption of unusual foods in their na-ive setting. I was looking at diet and nu-ritional habits and discovered a palm-ased protein from the fruit of a plantnown as Oenocarpus bataua, with a biolog-cal value equivalent to mother’s milk or
eat. This was a significant discovery, onehat put scientific rationale behind the facthat the people who ate this fruit gainedeight and were healthier and more resil-
ent during its season of abundance thanhe people who did not. But the experi-nce with the Guahibo people, and the re-lization of its powerful message, turnedy attention from a tight focus on agricul-
ure and nutrition to a broader ethnobo-
anical interest, including the study of C
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lant-based medicines and medicinal cul-ural traditions.XPLORE: Let’s go back to the tobaccoeremony and the theory that it took bothhe conventional and the traditional inter-ention to work.ALICK: The antivenom was given first,ut it didn’t do anything by itself. Theatient was still declining rapidly.XPLORE: But a hundred years ago, if
omeone had been bitten by a montonosa,hey would not have had the antivenom.hey would have only had the traditionalealing method. So does the traditionalethod work by itself?ALICK: Since that time, I have come
nto contact with a great number of snake-ite healers in various places, who tell mehat conventional physicians often releaseatients from hospitals into their care, andhey succeed in curing them. However, Ince had a conversation with the lateoger Caras, internationally recognized asn expert on animal life, while we traveledn Belize together, and he had a most in-eresting explanation of how indigenousnakebite healers have such a high claimf success. He explained that he was givensacred rock in one of his travels to the
ainforest and was told it could cure snake-ite 90% of the time by keeping it in hisocket. It worked, Roger said, because0% of the time, the snake was not poison-us. Then, 30% of the time, it was a dryite—the snake had already eaten andhere was no venom left. And then for0% of the bites, there was not enoughenom injected to be deadly, or the biteas in the wrong (right?) place. Of course,0% of the time it doesn’t work. However,hrough belief in this system, perhaps thelacebo effect impacts the latter 10% ofhe victims as well. I found Caras’ story ofow a rock in a person’s pocket could curenakebite the majority of the time to beascinating and worthy of further thought.
But the Colombia case was clearly dif-erent. And there are other cases whereeople are dying or declining, yet whenhey are released into the care of the heal-rs who then use plants, they get well.here are many poisonous snakes in Cen-
ral America, and, in the book that Dr.osita Arvigo and I are writing about ourthnobotanical studies in Belize—whichontains information on 950 different spe-ies of plants used by Maya, East Indian,
reole, and other healers—we identified o
EX
he plants used for snakebite treatments.uttonwood, cockspur, culantro, snakelant, and susumba are examples of localpecies used in some part of a traditionalnakebite treatment.XPLORE: So there is a biological aspect
o the native healing and not just a psy-hological aspect.ALICK: Absolutely. The people we workith in Central America have taught us aide range of plants designed to calm peo-le down, delay movement of toxins, neu-ralize venom, and things like that. In fact,eserpine, a drug initially prescribed forowering blood pressure, was derived fromhe root of Rauvolfia serpentina, a snakebitelant treatment found in India. Withinyurvedic medicine, one of the remedies
s to give the victim a piece of snake plantoot to chew on because it slows youown, calms you down. Think of it.here’s a snake under the branch you areitting on and you get bitten in the calf.
hat is the first thing you do? You woulde pretty upset, and you’d probably jumpround. But that would get the venomoving around in your blood, so the tra-
itional idea was to slow a person down,alm them, and give the culturally basedherapies a chance to work.XPLORE: How did the indigenous
ribes find out what worked?ALICK: There are many ways. One is
rial, error, and success. Traditional cul-ures are consummate experimentalists.hey are always looking and thinking, try-
ng and testing, and trading with the peo-le they meet. I once lived with a group ofndigenous people who used both the jab-randi and ipecac plants. Jaborandi, whenhewed, promotes salivation, whereas ipe-ac, as you know, promotes vomiting.ow why would a group of people iden-
ify plants with the specific properties ofromoting salivation and vomiting? Per-aps if you are experimenting with thelants in your environment and eat a rederry that looks like all the other berriesou have eaten in that area but this spe-ific one gives you terrible stomachramps instead, you need something to gethe substance out of your body. You wanto salivate it out, and you want to vomit itut. So they had plants to do that, just ase keep ipecac in the medicine chests ofouseholds with small children, who, too,re consummate experimentalists in their
wn right. So traditional peoples are al-
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ays experimenting in this way, with theonfidence that they can address the ad-erse reaction if it occurs.These lessons are transmitted orally, from
eacher to student, and so a base of knowl-dge, which is dynamic in nature, begins torow and develop. Another way that people
n the local festive garb of the Micronesian islaarland (mwaramwar) made of ylang-ylangttending harvest festivals. Photo by Jim Wise
earn about the therapeutic use of plants is to p
42 EXPLORE May 2006, Vol. 2, No. 3
bserve the animals in their environment—atch how they use plants for self medica-
ion. I met a man in Belize who looks afterorses and knows many plants they graze onhen they are not well. A copious, fascinat-
ng literature is developing on the topic ofoopharmacology—the use of medicinal
f Pohnpei, Dr. Balick sports a traditional headers given to people who are traveling or
n.
lants by animals. y
XPLORE: I have heard stories of plantsalking to people in a trance, communicat-ng how they should be used. Did you findhat practice as well?ALICK: One of the fascinating aspects ofy work as a scientist is learning about di-
erse cultures and traditions, includingany things we normally consider spiritual
nd philosophical rather than scientific.any of the traditional cultures with which
have worked have a philosophy that every-hing, whether human or not, has a soul.hey attempt to relate respectfully with allf their surroundings, including human,ock, plant, animal, bird, ancestral, and oth-rs, and consider them part of the widerommunity of life. These beliefs can beowerful forces, in surprising ways.We were making a videotape as I inter-
iewed this one Maya healer, because thats the medium I often use in interviews,nd he told me about working with aoman who had blindness caused by alood sugar problem. She had severalther conditions, but she’d been releasedrom the hospital as untreatable. He gaveer certain mixtures of food for the otheronditions, but he did not know what too for the blindness. So he went into theorest and sat by a stream for what healled a “meditation.” Around midnight,n idea, a vision, came into his head. Theisual was of a freshwater snail. So he tookome snails and cut their heads off andooked them, putting the resulting massn the woman’s eyes a couple of times aay to clean them. And slowly her visioname back.
The late Dr. Jin-Huai Wang, a friendnd Taoist philosopher from Bejing, wast my house in New York one day, watch-ng the tape of that interview when hetarted getting very agitated and excited—in aositive way. He ran off into the guestoom in our house and brought back aell-thumbed book that was several hun-red years old. Then he showed us that, inis traditional Chinese medicine book,he treatment for this same sort of eyeroblem was the extract of a snail.That really troubled me, because as a
cientist, it seemed too much of a coinci-ence. I couldn’t get my mind around it.nd the Chinese healer was equallymazed that the treatment was identical tohat he had been taught decades ago,ased on practices that were thousands of
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eagues would tell us was that the Mayaealer had keyed into the cosmic con-ciousness through his meditation. But Iave never been able to do that person-lly, so I don’t understand those things.r, perhaps the healer was a great storyteller.The Maya healer had never been out-
ide his area so he did not learn it inhina. Then one day, I started thinking
bout another intriguing possibility whenread the book 1421: The Year China Dis-
overed America. From the years 1421 to423, one of the Chinese emperors sentuge sailing vessels around the world. Theeet of boats was sent out to explore theorld and bring back everything that wasood and could be used in the Chineseconomy. When these boats ran aground,hich they sometimes did, everyoneould go onto shore and wait to be res-ued. But by 1423, the empire was bank-upt, so there were no resources to mount
rescue operation. The author of thisook, Gavin Menzies, suggested that anlement of the Chinese fleet landed on theayan shores in the 1400s, bringing some
f their systems, including healing, withhem.
An interesting parallel exists with pulseiagnosis. The Mayan people have a sys-em of pulse diagnosis that is similar tohinese and Ayurvedic pulse diagnosis.et according to conventional thinking,
hey were last in known contact 12,000ears ago, except perhaps for this Chinesexpedition. So the question becomes, didhey invent it independently in all threeocations and deduced a similar diagnosticystem? Or was there contact? Or is thereome other explanation? I don’t know thenswer.XPLORE: Let me ask this. Do indige-ous people treat headaches the same way
n each culture, or does each culture havedifferent way of curing them?ALICK: I haven’t observed headaches,ut what they do complain about is skinungus, spider bites, and scorpion bites,nd, yes, some of the treatments are veryimilar. I had one student compare theverlap between the traditional uses oflants from Africa and Haiti. She thenompared that information with anotherrea that was not in contact with eitherfrica or Haiti and she found no signifi-ant overlap in the similarity of plantssed for specific purposes. Clearly, that
verlap showed evidence of migration. n
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In ethnobotany, the thinking is that ifou can observe a plant being used inhree or four different places that have noteen in contact, then that is some evi-ence for greater efficacy then if you havenly a single observation.So yes, people use some of the same
lants for the same conditions, and theyse different plants for those same condi-ions. As I suggested, indigenous peoplere consummate experimentalists, andhey are always trading—trading informa-ion, trading recipes, trading plants. Forxample, when the Belize Association ofraditional Healers was founded in the980s and had their first meetings—inhich at least five distinct cultural andthnic groups were represented—they allrought plants to trade. And everyoneook home some new knowledge and prac-ice from that meeting.
Here at The New York Botanical Gar-en, we carry out a great deal of collabo-ative study with the Dominican commu-ity that is just a few blocks away. Theominican population in New York City
s around 800,000 people. Many seek pri-ary health care from botanicas, which are
asically shops selling fresh and driederbs, medicinal mixtures and tinctures,nd ritual and religious items. They areery traditional and employ curanderosnd espiritistas and other types of healers.bout 14,000 people, including both Do-inicans and tourists, fly back and forth
ach day from the Dominican Republic toew York and with that travel comes a
ource of plants and knowledge. We seehat Chinese and Pacific island plants areow being used in the Dominican Repub-
ic and that Dominican healing has alsohanged somewhat since its arrival on thesland of Manhattan. So noni (Morinda cit-ifolia), which is a Pacific island species, isow being used in the Dominican Repub-
ic, just as ginseng from China is now be-ng used. There is a great deal of changend exchange. This is a rather fascinatinghenomenon because, as an ethnobota-ist, one of my research goals is to try andecreate an understanding of the original
ayan healing system in the same wayhat an archaeologist would recreate whatclay vessel looked like before it was bro-en and scattered all over the earth. Andet the dynamism of traditional healingnd practice probably makes that goal
early impossible. h
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Indigenous peoplere consummatexperimentalists andhey are alwaysrading—tradingnformation, tradingecipes, tradinglants.”
XPLORE: That is an interesting goal.hat has been reconstructed so far?
ALICK: Dr. Rosita Arvigo and I re-orded the plant therapies that the lateaya H’men (healer priest) Don Eligio
anti taught her as part of her apprentice-hip with him. Some of this knowledgeas helped shed a little bit of light on whatrecontact healing was like in Centralmerica and Mexico.The Maya people had great schools of
nowledge and wisdom. Their under-tanding of astronomy, mathematics, andinguistics was much richer, deeper, and
ore sophisticated than the Spanish whoonquered them. I was recently in Belizend was standing in this 1,000-year-olduin site of a city, a great center of learninghat had schools where children wereaught traditional healing, mathematics,stronomy, language, and the Mayan cal-ndar. And all of it was destroyed. As theowns began to be abandoned, and thereat cities fell apart, the Mayan cultureeclined. Some people think it was be-ause that particular region had three pro-onged droughts. But the Spanish Conquis-adores came in and banned the practice ofll of these Mayan traditions. They burnedhe books and libraries and forced theeachers to stop teaching. When you readhe journals of the conquerors and theriests, they felt they were doing God’sork—that by burning souls they were sav-
ng souls, and by burning books they werereserving people’s place in the afterlife.As a result, only two of the Maya codi-
es exist to day. One is in Guatemala, andhe other is in the Vatican. But there were
undreds or thousands of these books that
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ad information about the plants theysed for healing. Some were about plasticurgery because the Mayan people per-ormed plastic surgery to cure differentroblems. Beginning in the 1490s, all ofhat knowledge shifted from a written tra-ition that was recorded by the H’men andheir scribes to an oral one. So motherould take daughter out beyond earshotf the Spanish soldiers and teach her whathe needed on her path to womanhood, orather would take son into a cave and ex-lain the plants that the son would need toaise his family.
Five hundred years after the conquest,lobalization has shifted the knowledgease again because nearly everyone hasiven up interest in it. The power of mod-rnization is reflected in the following ex-erience. Ten years ago, I was in a taxi inelize, and the young driver asked mehat I was doing. I told him that I hadome to continue my studies in bush med-cine, which is what they call their tradi-ional medicine. He said,
“My grandfather was a great healer. Henew everything about the bush and howo survive in it and how to use the plants.e taught my father some of what he
new, but, as a child, I was scared of goingnto the forest—I wanted to have a car,
hildren at the Bush Medicine Camp in Belizes the Chinese proverb says, “one generationy Michael Balick.
rink sodas, watch television, and listen to t
44 EXPLORE May 2006, Vol. 2, No. 3
usic on eight-track tapes instead. So Iever learned anything, and now I amorry. I have my taxi, and I have achievedy dream, but I wonder what my lifeould have been like if I had learned the
eachings of my elders.”So this man was supportive of the fact
hat someone was in his country on a mis-ion to codify information. But this is hap-ening all around the world in tens ofhousands of villages. Elders are notassing information to the youngerenerations.
If you look at it from the perspective ofyoung indigenous person living on an
sland who goes on-line and sees theorld, they naturally want to be part of it.o the dream of many is to get off thesland. What I observe is that part of that
eans giving up your roots because theyre “primitive or old-fashioned.” Humansre always in a rush to embrace that whichs novel. But when these young peopleeave their cultures and go into the worldo embrace these new things and a newifestyle, they enter at the lowest level ofociety and have a hard time moving upecause of social and economic pressures.o they have given up their roots to em-race something that does not provide theream they thought it would, and then
dly show a visitor the tree they have planted.nts the tree; another gets the shade.” Photo
hey start having all kinds of problems. v
These are metaphors for ways inhich we as Westerners could live.ommunity is a very powerful positive
orce, and yet we give up community tonter the modern world. But withoutommunity we are at a terrible disadvan-age, and without community these peo-le who immigrate to cities don’t have ahance. It is very sad to watch the resultsf globalization.Rosita Arvigo’s motto is “Stand Up for
our Roots”—stand up for the roots ofho you are and where you came from.omeone once made the wise observationhat if you don’t know where you camerom, you don’t know where you are going.XPLORE: Is there a solution?ALICK: There is no “one” solution.hen I was discussing this dilemma with
shok Ripoche, head of the Tibetan li-rary at Dharamsala and close disciple ofhe Dalai Lama, he said, as he understoodt, that you can never save all knowledge.ife is changing too fast. It’s all very tran-itional and ephemeral. So the idea is toearn the lessons of the knowledge and thenecide whether you let the knowledge it-elf go or whether you keep it. But, abovell, to learn the lessons of the knowledgeefore it is too late.So one of the important goals of ethno-
otany is to suggest that cultures havehoices, and one of these is to develop alearer understanding of the value of tra-itional knowledge in contemporaryimes, and to integrate the lessons from itnto daily life, and in that way to teach thenowledge to their children. To keep tra-itional knowledge and practice alive andell, along with recording it in a databaser publication.XPLORE: I love that idea—not only
earning the knowledge but learning theessons of the knowledge.ALICK: When I first went to Belize in987, I found that anybody could getand. Citizens of Belize are entitled to 50cres and a machete. The idea was tohop the forest down and plant things. Ifeople saw a snake in the bush, theyould kill it. If they saw a plant that theyanted to harvest, they would cut thehole tree down just to take a few fruits.ow, 20 years, I am working with theushmen, the healers, and the teacherss they implement a conservation ethicn that nation. There are annual conser-
rvigo, Dr. Patti Gildea Long, and Mela-ie Santiago where young children liveith the healers in the bush and learnbout plants. Every year two-dozen chil-ren have this experience. So, in theirchools, on the television and radio, andn their summer camps, children are noonger being taught that cutting downverything in a forest plot is appropriate,ather, just to cut what is needed to plantheir crops. And to preserve the rest.hese young people are being taughtow to think in terms of the future—tolant trees for the enjoyment and use ofheir grandchildren—a complete reversalf the previous mindset of only a decadego.
Rosita and I also wrote Rainforest Rem-dies: One Hundred Healing Herbs of Belizeecause the healers had asked us to writeprimary healthcare manual as one of
he exchange requirements for doing ourthnobotanical work with them over awo-decade period. This book has sinceecome a very important reference forheir ecotourism industry. We have cir-ulated these books widely in the coun-ry for people to use and, along with ahecklist of the flora compiled with col-eagues at The New York Botanicalarden, Dr. Michael Nee and Danieltha, local guides use these to interpretulture and nature for the foreignisitors.Here is an example of the power of an
thnobotanical manual. One day aoman came up to Rosita and said “Godless you.” Rosita asked why? And theoman said, “My baby was sick with aundred and three degree fever. Grandma
s long gone, and the clinic was closed, ande didn’t know what to do. We had nooney. But we have your Rainforest Reme-
ies book and saw this flower in it thatrows outside our house. So we made aath of the flower and bathed the baby’sead all night, and the fever was gone inhe morning. It’s as if grandmother is backith us because this is grandmother’snowledge.”So the solution is not the same for
verything and everyone. But by work-ng with the children, by working withhe elders and reintroducing elders toheir grandchildren, and by showingays that people can benefit economi-ally, showing them that the forest is
orth more standing than cut down, and i
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y incorporating all this into the curric-lum of the local institutions, there is ahance that things can be different. Ourork is definitely at the household orillage level, from the bottom up, a feweople at a time, and in that way differsrom most.
The usual scientific paradigm is to go in,ollect information, analyze it, and disap-ear. Our projects in Belize and Microne-ia and elsewhere have a different formu-ation and shape. We recognize that theocal people are partners in the effort, andhe idea is to leave the knowledge that well gathered together to be used in thatountry to benefit that country and toenefit the people and help protect themrom outside exploitation.
Rosita and I took second mortgages outn our respective houses to publish Rain-
orest Remedies because we had made aommitment to the healers, and thereasn’t a foundation grant to pay for itsublication. So we published it ourselveshrough Lotus Press and dedicated theoyalties back to the healers. Since its pub-ication, the book was able to provide over26,000 to the 11 healers we had workedith, each of who used their portion of theoney to pursue their own dream. Obvi-
usly, it wasn’t a well without limits, buthey then began their own family-levelconomic development efforts. Someuilt their own medical plants trails andthers started teaching their grandchil-ren about the uses of plants.But these studies are much more about
elf-respect, pride, and acknowledgmenthan they are about money, at least to theenuine healer. Let me tell you anothertory. When I first met Don Eligio Pantiack in 1986, I explained that I had a grantrom the National Cancer Institute to sur-ey plants of his region, in South America,nd in the Caribbean to look at their po-ential efficacy for AIDS and cancer. I ex-lained that, if he was willing to share hisedicinal plants and samples and his
nowledge with us, that we would sendamples to Washington to be analyzed byhe NCI. He said something very pro-ound in return. And he said, “We elderson’t get respect anymore. The teachersnd religious leaders in charge of educa-ion in this country say that we are crazynd that people should go to clinics ratherhan come to us. But I have been practic-
ng for 60 years, and I know it works.” c
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He went on to say that. “My wife died aumber of years ago, and I want to joiner. I am an old man, and I am lonely. Butou have come here saying that your cul-ure cannot deal with these conditions,his things you call AIDS, and you haveome to we Maya, the spirits and theresent, in a search of answers. So evenhough I want to be with my wife, I willork with you as long as it takes to giveou my knowledge. First, so that Rositaan practice it for the rest of her life andrain people to carry it on and, second, sohat you can test all these plants. Then,hen I am done, I can die and be with myife and be happy again. And if you findnything of value in these plants, it will bes if these plants were guaranteed by thecientists and doctors as being effective,nd, once again, they will respect us andisten to us. And that will be worth myime.”XPLORE: Is that what happened?ALICK: Yes. We were working with
ome cancer screens at the time with aechanism involving light and pigmenta-
ion. We sent the samples of a plant hehowed us to our collaborators, and theyound new activity. They published a pa-er on it with Don Eligio Panti as a coau-hor. He took that paper and put it on hisall and whenever the patients wouldome in, he would say, “See, this is mylant. They showed that it works.” In hisind, the greatest gift that came out of the
roject was when two officials from theational Cancer Institute came for a site
isit with a certificate of thanks in a frameor his collaboration in this global surveyf anti-AIDS and anticancer activity.ears of pride welled up in his eyes as heat there and received the certificate. Itade everything worth it.XPLORE: I have to ask. Did you makenough money from the book to pay offour second mortgage?ALICK: We did. And in the meantime
he healers achieved many of the goalshey wanted to achieve. For example, oneidwife, whenever she delivered a child,
he had to sleep on the floor of her houseecause the new mother was in her bed.his midwife was in her late seventies, andleeping on the floor was becoming hardernd harder. So she built a bedroom and aoilet. Another woman bought six sewingachines so the Women’s Cooperative
ould sew clothing in her village.
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In Belize, I worked with a Belgium film-aker, Francoise Pierrot, and she recorded
ur two-hour interviews with each of the1 healers. We cut them down to a 55-inute VHS tape and gave them back to
he community. Many of the families ofhese healers would watch the same inter-iew over and over again. I went back andsked one of the family members, “Whyre you watching this for the fifth night inrow?” And he said, “Because we think
hat Grandma might say something differ-nt tonight.” But regardless, they are re-onnecting to their elders again, and, inany cases, the traditional healers in thelm have passed on.XPLORE: What is your work in Micro-esia?ALICK: The island of Pohnpei, in theederated States of Micronesia, has per-aps 30,000 people living on it. It is di-ided up into five kingdoms, ruled by tra-itional chiefs, at two levels—a paramounthief and an oratory chief. At the sameime, there is a US-installed democraticovernment with a president and a senate.ecause of the rapid process of modern-
zation, traditional knowledge is disap-earing very quickly there. These are is-
r. Balick in his outdoor laboratory in New Yorkne million plants including 18,000 different tahoto by Muriel Weinerman.
and people isolated from the world who a
46 EXPLORE May 2006, Vol. 2, No. 3
ere once dependent on voyaging toatch their fish and carry out commerce.hey needed knowledge of how to pre-erve food, such as breadfruit, so thathen a typhoon came and knocked downll the food trees and flooded all of theultivated plots on their island and its sur-ounding atolls, covering everything withalt water, they could go to their breadood pit and obtain their survival food.ermented breadfruit can last 80 years orore with no refrigeration. But the fact
hat few people have breadfruit pits any-ore and that almost no one remembersow to make one is a metaphor for theonsequences of the wider loss of tradi-ional knowledge in the Micronesianegion.
Dr. Roberta Lee and I have been car-ying out ethnobotanical studies onohnpei since 1997. Previously, she wasUS Public Health Service physician inicronesia for nearly five years, so she
new these islands and their culturesuite well. In the early days of this work,e were teaching a class of college stu-ents on Pohnpei, and, when it cameime to name the parts of a coconutalm in their native language, few were
m fortunate to work in a place with more thanhe says. “What more could a botanist want?”
ble to do so. This was astonishing in t
iew of the fact that the coconut is onef the most important and ubiquitouslants on the island. We were curious tond out whether, on this isolated island,ther types of plant-based traditionalnowledge were being lost. We carriedut a very simple survey that ascertainedhe student’s traditional knowledge,heir parent’s knowledge, and theirrandparent’s knowledge. It becameery clear that traditional knowledge,nd its practice, was being lost on thissland. None of the college kids knewow to make a canoe, and, for voyagingeople, this has a significant impact onulture. Very few of them knew how tose plants for capturing fish underwatero harvest them. It’s a process whereinou swim underwater and put a piece ofounded root in a little grotto, and thesh inside are paralyzed and are easy toapture. And none of them knew how toreserve breadfruit.So ancient traditional knowledge, and
ts practice, is disappearing very quicklyithin this current generation. We worklosely with The Nature Conservancy, Mi-ronesia Office, directed by a very vision-ry man named William Raynor. He un-erstands the link between culture,onservation, and environmental sustain-bility. I first went to Pohnpei in 1997 withrs. Diane Ragone, Tim Flynn and Davidorence from the National Tropical Bo-anical Garden; Roberta Lee, MD, fromhe Beth Israel Center for Health andealing; and Jim Wiseman, a filmmaker.e all were there as a research group—a
ice example of what you can do as annterdisciplinary team.
With the encouragement of people likeaynor, over the past few years we haveeen working to catalogue traditionalnowledge as well as produce a checklist ofhe island plants. Imagine that most ofhese biodiversity-rich Pacific islands doot even have a reliable list of the plants,
nsects, animals, and other organisms thatre found there. Having an inventory ofhat is present is really the antecedent toonserving it. Otherwise, how do you de-elop priorities for conservation areas, andow do you evaluate the results of theork? So we have gathered everything thatas ever recorded, from brief photocopied
eports of observations made by Japanesecientists during the 1930s to the papers of
. “I’xa,”
he Germans and Spanish, and created a
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ich database of current knowledge. I amrivileged, through the support of auggenheim Fellowship, to be spending
his year combining all of that informa-ion with the information our team hasathered on Pohnpei since 1997 into aook on the ethnobotany of the islandnd its people. Because at the same timehat you need to understand what plantsre there, you need to have an idea of whatt has been used for—to learn the lessons ofhe wisdom.XPLORE: Did the indigenous peoplesork with you easily, or was it hard to get
heir cooperation?ALICK: What happened in Micronesia
s that, after nearly two years of visits toohnpei, I sat down with one of the Ora-ory chiefs, the Iso Nahnken of Nett—aery intelligent, traditional, and thought-ul man—and told him what I wanted too. He said, “We chiefs are responsible forur people. In the old days, to manage ouram or tuna harvest, the chiefs would findut when the tuna were near our islandnd then send the boats out for harvest.
e would find out when the yams wereeady and declare a yam feast. The ances-ors, whose spirits are all around us, wants to live in this traditional way, but therere outside forces. Our children want to goo Guam or Hawaii and live a Western life.hey no longer speak the respect languagef this island, which is how elders andhiefs are to be addressed. They don’tnow the names of the plants, and theyon’t know our traditions. But if we losehe respect of our people then the ances-ors around us will rise from their restinglaces and be angry and that would be aatastrophe.
“Respect holds this island together,” heaid. “I had a dream that an outsider wouldy in on the wings of a bird and livemong us and be able to help explain tour children that the Western culture thathey are so worshipful of does not have allhe answers and that we should not loseverything about our traditional lifestyleo quickly. You are that person in myream, so you are free to live amongst usnd carry out this project, and we will helpou.” And that was another one of thoseoments.We plan to devote the next five years to
xpanding the project to other islands inicronesia as people in other places have
eard about what Pohnpei is doing and c
oices
ant us to work there as well. Our teamill be developing new initiatives, and Dr.ee will coordinate the production of arimary healthcare manual based on Mi-ronesian plants, as well as offering a fel-owship for physicians interested in learn-ng about ethnomedical practices and
edicinal plants.XPLORE: Is there an American traditionf plants? Maybe I just don’t know about
t, but we seem so impoverished.ALICK: In public lectures, I always ask ifeople remember what their grandmotherr grandfather prescribed for a stomach-che. Most people don’t raise their hand,nd, if they do, the answers are soda oroke syrup. But if you ask that questionverseas, you get a wide range of differentnswers that are much richer. What’s hap-ening to these island cultures from glob-lization is exactly what has happened tos in this country.
People from allround the world areoming to thisountry andlobalizing us in aay that we haveever beenlobalized before.”Of course, the Native American peoples
ave a rich culture, but that’s not one ofy research topics. Currently, there areumerous individuals from Native Amer-
can cultures studying the traditional usesf their own plants. Some of these are phy-icians, while others are formally trainedthnobotanists. What I am involved in re-lly is what is called salvage ethnobotanyith cultures and ecosystems that are on
he verge of being globalized and de-troyed, with the hope of interestingoung people in those places to take uptudies of the traditional wisdom of theirlders before they pass on—whether it beor use by the family in healthcare, as a
areer in ecotourism and conservation, as i
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he foundation of an herb business—orerhaps to lead a more fulfilling life.XPLORE: But you mentioned that youlso work in New York City?ALICK: About a decade ago, I beganorking on a project with Dr. Fredi Kro-enberg at the Rosenthal Center for Alter-ative and Complementary Medicine atolumbia College of Physicians and Sur-
eons. New York is a magnet for immi-rants, and, with Fredi’s interest in wom-n’s health, we began to work with thehinese and Hispanic communities onow they addressed women’s issues. Forxample, we carried out inventories oflant use in the Chinese clinics and in theispanic botanicas This is what laid the
roundwork for our current NCCAMrant to look at Dominican health andealing systems and how knowledgehanges during its movement from onesland to another. This project is being di-ected by Dr. Ina Vandaebroek, a postdoc-oral fellow on the Botanical Garden’staff. One of the advantages of this projects that we don’t have to get on an airplane,on’t need a passport, and don’t have toake a malaria prophylaxis. I can get on theubway and go downtown and talk to peo-le who are just as knowledgeable as theeople I had been traveling thousands ofiles to see.In fact, one of the healers, who worked
n a small dark basement maybe about halfhe size of this office, was one of the mostntuitive people I have ever met. And hisiagnostic skills, understanding of the usef herbs in healing, and overall mannerere equally extraordinary. The realiza-
ion that Fredi, I, and others on thisroject had that these knowledgeable peo-le were within walking distance of Theew York Botanical Garden was another
ah ha” moment.XPLORE: So 20 years into this, and youre a strong proponent of the power of theind and of people’s beliefs.ALICK: Yes, another story that bringsome the mind-body connection hap-ened when we were traveling in the backoods of Brazil with a group of people onbus. We passed this woman who was
racking open the nuts of a palm tree andxtracting the fruits. Of course, everyoneumped out of the bus and circled arounder. So here were all these excited foreign-rs with their video and still cameras flash-
ng away as she was undertaking her sim-
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le, daily routine—breaking open nutsith her axe. As soon as she was sur-
ounded, she became hysterical, had a dif-cult time breathing, and went into a statef shock. She was convinced that the peo-le had stolen her spirit with their cam-ras. She had to be hospitalized immedi-tely.XPLORE: The belief itself caused thehysical manifestation of the symptoms.ALICK: Yes, and people from cultures
hat have these strong beliefs can becomeeriously ill or even die from suchonditions.
If you look at the DSM-IV-TR (Diagnos-ic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disor-ers, Fourth Edition, the American Psychi-tric Association [2000]), there is now anntire appendix on the nature of culturallypecific disease. Physicians are just startingo acknowledge and understand the depthf these conditions. At The New York Bo-anical Garden, one of our team, Joleneukes, has been working with the Domin-
can community and their healthcare pro-iders to produce a manual of the plantssed by Dominican people living in Nework City. But the manual is not for usey them. It is for the physicians and
ealthcare providers who treat patients d
48 EXPLORE May 2006, Vol. 2, No. 3
rom this community and need to knowow to identify the botanicals individualatients are using, where these come from,heir safety, and what their indications andontraindications are, so they can bettererve their patients who are using theselants.This brings up another interesting phe-
omenon that I call “reverse globaliza-ion.” We seek to bring our society andalues to the rest of the world and, in ouraivety, see it as a unidirectional process.ut because the United States is a magnet
or immigration, what’s really happenings that people from all around the worldre coming to this country and globalizings in a way that we have never been glob-lized before. In New York City, the diver-ity of fruits and vegetables in the marketsas increased 10-fold in the last two de-ades. The changes in medicinal plants,ealing systems, practitioners, and restau-ants are probably the most obvious exam-les of this process. We have becomeuch more like the rest of the world. The
esult? More and more New Yorkers of allthnic groups are going to botanicas andalking to traditional healers and talking toheir doctors about herbs and other mo-
alities these days. I think reverse global- g
zation has had a huge impact on the con-ciousness of people in this city, and Ihink it is one of the forces that has fueledhe growth of integrative medicine, a com-ination of allopathic and scientificallyalidated traditional medicine.Where is this all going? I suspect that
he academic study of the ethnomedicalractices of traditional cultures around theorld will continue to comprise only a
elative handful of scientists and their stu-ents. And that much data will be lostver the coming decades as human societ-es move forward. As human ethnicroups become less homogenous, so tooill traditional knowledge, becoming anmalgam of practices from the past andresent and from different geographic re-ions. In the same way that there will beiodiversity reserves, such as nationalarks, there will be areas where traditionalractices continue. But for both of thesemportant resources, I fear that they willventually come to occupy only a fractionf the globe’s surface, unless we begin tohink about ourselves, our cultures, andur environmental responsibilities with aifferent level of respect and understand-ng. Remember, the fate of the seventh
