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The Guardian Magazine 2008-2009
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| By Laureen Kwock Sitting cross-legged on my beach mat, I face the blue green waters off Waikiki. White foam curls as I murmur my mantra to the waves. A pigeon pecks around my toes. Breathe in. Breathe out. Oxygen in. Carbon dioxide out. In the Amazon rainforest of South America the breathing cycle is reversed. A hundred feet above ground a green canopy spreads, nine times the area of Texas. While sunlight filters through the leaves, bromeliads flower on tree branches and algae-covered sloths slumber. The forest, the so-called “Lungs of Planet Earth,” works continuously, changing carbon dioxide to oxygen. Twenty percent or more of the oxygen we breathe comes from the Amazon. That’s one out of every five breaths. Stretching from the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean, Amazonia occupies part of nine countries including almost half of Brazil. Early cartographers called the area terra papagallum, Land of Parrots, after the brightly plumed macaws. Conquistadors once searched here for El Dorado, the city of gold. Today different treasure hunters roam the forest: scientists searching for cures for AIDS and cancer. The world’s largest tropical forest is a treasure trove with 30,000 plant species and unknown millions yet to be discovered. Medicines to treat these diseases and others will probably come from this living pharmacy. Herbs such as Iporuru (Alchornia castaneifolia) and Uña de Gato (Uncaria tomentosa) already have researchers investigating their healing and immune-boosting properties. Over millennia plants, insects, animals and human beings have adapted to co-exist in a fragile balancing act that is threatened today. About twenty percent of the original rainforest has disappeared. Lost forever. Figures released last August show deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon between August 2006 and July 2007 at 3,863 square miles. Although an improvement over previous years, the continuing loss of rainforest contributes to global warming and threatens the future of indigenous peoples as well as animals and plants. In the last century over ninety Amazonian tribes are thought to have disappeared. When native healers die, their knowledge dies with them. Consider that an acre of land used for cattle yields $60 worth of annual income or $400 if used for timber. That same acre yields a whopping $2,400 a year if used for herbs and other sustainable resources. The Amazon Herb Company www.amazonherb.com is committed to this third path of land use. Its founder, “Amazon John” Easterling, recovered from illness with the help of native healers and their herbs. His company seeks to preserve the rainforest and its indigenous communities. Buying Amazon herbal products is one way to help save the rainforest. We can also recycle paper, purchase furniture not made from tropical hardwoods and contribute to a conservancy organization. The non-profit organization, Amazon International Rainforest Reserve, (AIRR), www.amazonrainforest.org, buys rainforest land and protects it with forest rangers. $35 will save an acre. We need to act now. Otherwise, the cry of the harpy eagle, the chatter of the great river otter and the roar of the jaguar will be silenced. The only sound heard would be our planet trying to catch its breath. Sources: FOR AMAZON HERBS PLEASE CONTACT RYAN MC VAY AT 808.357.8288 OR WRITE TO HIM AT PO BOX 791646 PAIA, MAUI, HAWAII. YOU MAY ALSO VISIT RYAN’S WEBSITE, WHERE YOU FIND IS FINE ART AND MORE ABOUT THIS WONDERFUL ARTIST, WHO NOT ONLY SUPPORTS THE AMAZON RAIN FOREST, BUT DISTRIBUTES AMAZON HERBS AND PEFORMS AMAZING WORKS OF ART. www.amazonherb.com www.amazonrainforest.org http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0813-amazon.html www.blueplanetbiomes.org/amazon.htm www.worldwildlife.org/wildplaces/amazon/facts.cfm www.pbs.org/journeyintoamazonia/enter.htm http://www.amazon-rainforest.org |
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