Amazing Amazon articulated

LAKEVILLE — Flesh-eating bacteria, vampire bats, hallucinogenic brews served up by shamans. Sounds like an exploitation movie.These were just a few of the gaudier elements of a talk by ethnobotanist Mark J. Plotkin Friday night, Sept. 16, at The Hotchkiss School, as part of the Salisbury Forum series.Plotkin, who co-founded the Amazon Conservation Team with Liliana Madrigal, and is the organization’s president, argued in a passionate, amusing and rapid-fire style for preservation of the Amazonian rain forest and its potential for developing medicines.That’s where the horror film stuff comes in.It turns out that the saliva of the vampire bat is very effective in keeping blood from clotting. “When bitten you bleed like a stuck pig,” said Plotkin, adding that the trade name for the drug, which could be used to treat stroke victims, is “Draculine.”Venturing into Carlos Castaneda territory, Plotkin said that when the shaman offers the mystical brew, the anthropologist declines, wishing to retain objectivity.The ethnobotanist, on the other hand, “Says Yee-Haw!”But beta blockers, commonly prescribed for patients with heart problems, were the result of research on hallucinogenic (or “magic”) mushrooms in Mexico.Plotkin said that curare, a poison obtained from the aptly named poison dart frog and applied by indigenous peoples on, you guessed it, poison darts, is also the source of a surgical muscle relaxant and has potential as a non-opiate pain killer.And consider the giant Amazon green monkey frog. “These are the ones you lick,” Plotkin said.He described one Westerner’s experience: After licking the frog, his blood pressure soared, and “he woke up in a hammock six hours later, and felt like God for two days.”But what about the blood pressure rise? That’s what interested researchers.Plotkin’s bottom line: The Amazon rain forest is the potential source of an incredible variety and amount of medicines, and it needs to be protected.The Amazon Conservation team’s approach relies on indigienous people acting as stewards of land protected from development, noting that officially protected park areas in Brazil, regions the size of Belgium, are patrolled by a force of three guards who live a hundred miles away.“Why would they want to live in the park? No showers, refrigerators, television. The people are naked, painted, they have poison — and they’re pissed off.”By contrast, the areas of similar size that are reserved for the indigenous tribes have several thousand inhabitants, who carry in their heads the location and use of hundreds of potential medicines.Plotkin showed how a map of one reserve was created after interviewing the locals. The map is covered with hundreds of symbols indicating the location of a plant or animal the Indians have a specific use for. Creating this kind of database means striking a balance between cultures — not the easiest task.“We know there is an essential role for Western science and technology,” Plotkin said. “We try to empower the Indians to take control of their destinies.”Plotkin claims 10 million acres of rain forest have been saved as the result of this approach, dubbed “Map-Manage-Protect.”But the rain forest continues to be developed — for timber, to open up land for ranching. Plotkin finds this short-sighted and unacceptable.The Amazon “is the greatest expression of life on Earth, and it’s being trashed and burned, taking with it the incredible potential for medicines.But, he noted, “Conservation is first a spiritual exercise. We all sleep better knowing there are wild lands.”