Timehost: Welcome to tonight's Time.com chat. Our guest tonight is MEDICINE QUEST author MARK PLOTKIN. Mark Plotkin is a renowned ethnobotanist who has spent the past 20 years studying the healing secrets of the powerful shamans of the Amazon jungle. In his first book, THE SHAMAN's APPRENTICE, Mark chronicles the time he spent in the Amazon studying with the shamans. In his latest book, MEDICINE QUEST, Mark travels around the world in search of plants and animals that have the power to treat what we now consider to be "incurable" diseases. Mark Plotkin was named one of Time Magazine's Heroes of the Planet for his tireless work to save the Amazon.

Timehost: Our guest is here!!! Please welcome Mark Plotkin to the chat!

Mark Plotkin: Hi, it's great to be here!.

Timehost: Mark, before we take questions, what is an ethnobotanist, and how did you become interested in it?

Mark Plotkin: An ethnobotanist is a scientist who studies the relationships between people and plants. That can be anything from Indians in the Amazon using medicinal plants to local peoples gathering wild rice in the Great Lakes region. I first became interested during a night school course in September of 1974 when I enrolled in a class in the botany and chemistry of hallucinogenic plants.

CoolDan989 asks: What do you learn working with shamans?

Mark Plotkin: Working with local peoples, particularly in the rain forest, is first and foremost a very humbling experience. Because I saw these folks knew a lot more about healing and a lot more about ecology than not only I did also more than my Ivy League professors. And this gave me a very deep respect for the knowledge of other so-called pre-literate or illiterate cultures.

nnamdi27 asks: What are some of the potential medical uses of the plants you've found in the Amazon?

Mark Plotkin: Well I've seen local peoples, and not just native Americans, but Maroons, also known as Bush Negroes, and even peasants using local plants to treat everything from head to toe. Dandruff to athletes foot. And just about everything in between. Now, I'm not claiming that these people can cure everything, but anybody who thinks that western medicine can cure everything has to think about severe depression, schizophrenia, most cancers, drug resistant bacteria and a whole host of others. The point being, no system, including our own, has all the answers, and what I've been hoping for, working for, and writing books about is to respect this local wisdom and see how it can help us as well as them. This is the focus of my work at the Amazon conservation team, the web address of which is www.ethnobotany.org

linda7461 asks: What is your book all about?

Mark Plotkin: My new book is called Medicine Quest, published by Viking Penguin. The focus of this book is the revolution over the past five years in biotechnology and the very positive potential impact it has on the search for new medicines from nature. What these new technologies allow us to do is find, analyze and manipulate molecules as never before. And I discuss the hot new leads, either in the pipeline or already in the marketplace. Because I, and other enthobotanists, as well as other conservationists, have been criticized by people, who said there are no new drugs in Mother Nature. And basically -- they are wrong, and we are right.

nnamdi27 asks: Are "natural" remedies at odds with the principles of Western medicine?

Mark Plotkin: The genius of the shamans is that they combine the chemical with the spiritual. The chemical elements being the compounds that are in the plants or insects or whatever. The spiritual elements are the prayers, the chants, the dances, the laying on of hands, and so that is different than western medicine. Which to my way of thinking is pretty much devoid of spiritual content at this time. That is why the shamans can do some things, and I emphasize some things, that our own medicine sometimes cannot. The Shamans often claim that ethnobotanists can always take the plants with them but they fail to take the spirit, which is what they (the Shamans) are managing! The bottom line here is that there is an overlap between shamanistic and western medicine in my opinion, but when I see aromatherapy, massage therapy, visualization therapy being taught in medical or nursing schools, it means some of those shamanic techniques are already becoming available to us in so-called western medicine.

CoolDan989 asks: How can certain ants cure the pain of arthritis?

Mark Plotkin: In my book Medicine Quest, there is a chapter on New Drugs From Bugs. I believe that one of the great frontiers on this search for natural medicine is from the insect world. It is basically a numbers game. You have 80,000 species of flowering plants in the world. You have somewhere between 20 and 30 million species of insects. Now people in the Amazon, and in fact people in the United States, particularly in Appalachia, have long used insects stings for arthritic problems, and in the case of the U.S. are now using it for multiple sclerosis in some instances. What we believe is happening here in terms of the arthritis is that there is a complex sugar molecule which is relieving the effect of the arthritis - not a cure, but a treatment. In terms of MS, this is being studied at a medical college in Philadelphia. But I believe it is a treatment, perhaps a successful one, but not a cure. To conclude, it's particularly ironic, that many of the most exciting leads from nature now being studied in the laboratory, come from poisonous creatures.

Timehost: What are the most promising discoveries are out there in terms of treating "incurable" diseases such as AIDS or cancer?

Mark Plotkin: The National Cancer Institute has been focusing on several new compounds to be used in chemotherapy based on coral reef organisms, in particular sponges. Perhaps one of the most interesting leads of all is from copperhead venom, which seems to interfere with angiogenesis, which is how tumors send out blood vessels to grow and reproduce. Now this is very preliminary work in terms of the copperhead venom. But there are other instances of natural products interfering with angiogenesis, and I think that this one of the most exciting areas of cancer research. In terms of AIDS, I believe that the AIDS virus will continue to evolve, and we will continue to need to find new compounds to add to the AIDS cocktail. One of these compounds may be prostratin, which is mentioned in my book, and more information is available in the web. This was discovered in use by my colleague Paul Cox, who runs the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawaii.

GalaxyGirl486 asks: What do you think about saving the Amazon?

Mark Plotkin: Well, think how upset people would be if poor people from the third world broke into art museums and started burning Picassos to keep warm and cook their dinner. To me, species are as valuable as any Picasso. And many of them are a hell of a lot more useful. So I think the burning of the rain forest for short-term gain, or out of necessity because of social inequality or overpopulation, is one of the greatest tragedies of our time.

cjnyc asks: Can we reverse the destruction of the Amazon?

Mark Plotkin: The major focus right now, the most urgent focus, needs to be protecting what's left. Because scientists at this point in time, cannot regrow a primary rainforest in all its diversity and glory no matter how hard they try.

Timehost: Sorry, we had a question about what it is like to be on Reading Rainbow...

Mark Plotkin: I don't know what it's like to appear on Reading Rainbow since I haven't seen it yet; it runs on PBS on May 8. Several years ago I asked my old friend Lynne Cherry if she might me interested in collaborating on a children's book based on my earlier book, Tales Of a Shaman Apprentice. Lynne is my absolute favorite author/illustrator in children's literature, and has a Gauginesque ability to capture tropical nature on the page. The book was published two years ago and in December of 1999, I had the great honor of taking Lavar Burton down to Suriname to film the episode in the village in which the story was set. And Lavar has spent 18 years getting kids excited about reading. And as someone who has two little kids of his own, the idea of having the chance to get children all over the world excited about reading, rainforests and protecting the environment was too good to pass up.

CoolDan989 asks: How did you celebrate Earth Day?

Mark Plotkin: For me, every day is Earth Day, I'm an environmentalist. The great problem with protecting the environment is that people seem to misunderstand what environmentalism is all about. One of the great tragedies of the eighties and nineties was the politicization of the environment. We all need clean air, clean water and medicines when we get sick. The environment helps everybody. It was never a Democratic or a Republican issue. It seems particularly ironic these days to consider the fact that our two greatest environmental presidents were both Republicans. I don't know what's worse, George Bush pretending he is an environmentalists, or Al Gore pretending he isn't.

mr_chatmeister asks: What has been the highlight of your career?

Mark Plotkin: There have been many highlights in my career, but one of the most gratifying was last summer, when the Amazon conservation team helped sponsor the first ever meeting of the most ancient and powerful shamans of the Northwest Amazon. Who met to discuss the fate of their culture and their ecosystem. This is what we call biocultural conservation, because we believe that the fate of the forest and the fate of these cultures is inextricably intertwined. And there is more information on this on our website, www.ethnobotany.org

CoolDan989 asks: When did you know you wanted to be an author?

Mark Plotkin: I never knew that I wanted to be an author. I didn't work on the school newspaper, my nickname wasn't Scoop. And it all came about in a very circumspect way. A publisher was actually visiting the office of a friend of mine at the World Wildlife Fund. And my friend said I don't have to write a book, why don't you talk to the guy next-door because he does cool stuff as well. A week later, without telling me any of this, the editor sent me a contract, and that's how I happened to write Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice. After the success of that book, my publisher wanted me to write something else, and I replied, that I'd poured 15 years of my life into that first book and really didn't have anything else to say. But when I did, I'd write another book. Well, that took five years to happen, and the result is Medicine Quest.

freddy14s asks: Did you ever have any bad experiences with nature?

Mark Plotkin: When I was doing my first expedition in search of a giant crocodilian, I was offered a snuff by one of the local Creoles in French Guyana. And being a fledgling ethnobotanist, I thought I'd give it a try. At first it made me woozy, then it made me vomit so hard I thought I was going to spit up my internal organs. So it hasn't all been fun.

nnamdi27 asks: What would you say to people who want things, like air conditioning, that are bad for the environment?

Mark Plotkin: Look, I don't live in a thatched hut. I own a car. I have a refrigerator. All these things that are potentially injurious to the environment. People aren't giving up the internal combustion engine anytime soon. But I think there are ways that we can mitigate our negative impacts on the environment: trying not to waste resources, not driving the biggest car, recycling your stuff. And if everybody would try to walk softly on the Earth, we'd end up with a better planet, than we would if we try to get people to give up cars and air conditioning, things that just aren't going to happen. By the same token, we can do a better job of getting legislatures to make it increasingly commercially feasible to develop electric cars, to develop wind power, and things that really can eliminate our negative impacts in many ways.

Timehost: What do we have in our own back yards that has been historically used as medicine?

Mark Plotkin: The case of echinacea is particularly illustrative of the wealth of medicines and potential medicines in our own country. Echinacea was long used by many Indian people in North America for a variety of medicinal purposes. Once tested in the laboratory it was shown to be a very effective immunostimulant. So, really a major point I tried to make in Medicine Quest, is that species everywhere have great potential, not just in the Amazon, and not just plants. And that we can learn from people around the world. Here as well as in the tropics.

vbcassell asks: Ive heard about Amazon Conservation Team. Are you involved? What is it exactly?

Mark Plotkin: The Amazon Conservation Team, also known as ACT, represents an effort by biologists, environmentalists, indigenous leaders, shamans, to create a new model of conservation that focuses at the grass roots level. We emphasize work, particularly with tribal peoples, in places like Mexico, or Columbia, or Suriname, working in a partnership at the village level to help these people seize control of their environmental and cultural destiny. Large environmental organizations are often most effective at the national and international level. Smaller organizations, like the Amazon Conservation Team, or the Rainforest Alliance, can sometimes be more effective in working with local communities. Perhaps our most exciting initiative at this point in time, is to work with local peoples in the northwest Amazon to help them establish biocultural reserves that protect their sacred mountains, medicinal plants and sources of clean water. That spiritual connection is a very important niche for conservation efforts.

Timehost: Where will you be speaking on your book tour????

Mark Plotkin: I will be heading off to the west coast this weekend, and will be spending two weeks speaking from San Diego to Seattle with lots of stops along the way. And my exact schedule will be posted on our website, www.ethnobotany.org, within the next few days. For the teachers who are interested in this work, there is now a teacher's guide to The Shaman's Apprentice, which will be posted when the PBS special runs on May 8 on our website. Two specific dates May 11 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and May 18, at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans.

herbnmagic asks: How can I get actively involved in the rainforest efforts?

Mark Plotkin: The best way to get actively involved in rainforest efforts, for school kids in particular, is to raise money and support rainforest projects. Kids often make the best environmentalists because they are the most idealistic segment of the entire population. Several hands on workshops are taught for everybody from grade schoolers to health care professionals, through International Expeditions in Costa Rica and Peru. I always encourage people who want to get actively involved in a hands-on way to go to the rainforest with a tour operator like International Expeditions or Earthwatch, and stay on as a volunteer afterwards, if you really want to be involved.

Timehost: What are your favorite books on the Amazon?

Mark Plotkin: My favorite new book is called Journey of the Pink Dolphins, an Amazon Quest, by my friend Sy Montgomery, which is a wonderful read and is chockfull of extraordinary natural history. Beyond that, my favorite writer on the Amazon is Loren McIntyre who I had the great good fortune to work with personally in the making of the IMAX film AMAZON. He's not only a phenomenal explorer, having discovered the source lake of the Amazon, which is named Laguna McIntyre, but he is a superb photographer and incredible writer. His books are out of print, and if there are any publishers here this evening, I hope they will bring them back into print; they are superb works of natural history. And my other two favorite writers on the Amazon are Michael Goulding and Adrian Forsyth.

CoolDan989 asks: How did you react when you found out you were Time Magazine's Hero of the Planet?

Mark Plotkin: Well, on the one hand I was incredibly flattered. But it was a bit ironic to me. Having lost two dear friends, Ted Parker and Al Gentry, who died in a plane crash in Equador. And to see other people like Chico Mendez and Ken Saro-Wiwa who literally died in their fight to protect the environment. So when you have those types of true martyrs to the cause, these are my heroes of the environment. And when you have shamans, bearers of 50,000 years of human wisdom, who are literally fighting for their lives, their culture and their forests as we speak, these are my other heroes of the environment. So this makes it pretty easy for me to keep things in perspective.

Timehost: We are about out of time, do you have any last thoughts you want to leave us with

Mark Plotkin: As we enter the 21st century, being only four months into it, it's very important that the protection of Mother Nature needs to be considered one of the central issues of our time. I don't care how technologically successful our society is, I don't care how urban oriented our society is, the protection of nature needs to be considered first and foremost a spiritual issue. We live a poorer life as species go extinct. I believe in the utilitarian approach to conservation. In other words, talking about the medicinal value or agricultural value of species, because it's particularly useful when discussing conservation with people who are perhaps resistant to the idea of protecting species everywhere. But these moral issues greatly supercede the utilitarian ones.

Timehost: Mark thank you so much for joining us. Make sure to find out more in Mark Plotkin's new book, MEDICINE QUEST!

Mark Plotkin: I'd like to thank everybody who joined us, I'd like to thank Time Magazine, Time.com and Yahoo! and I would like to wish everyone a very happy Earth Day.

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