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 Biography:
Dr. Mark Plotkin is a renowned ethnobotanist who has been working with elder shamans (traditional doctors or healers), of Central and South America to learn about healing plants for much of the past 20 years. Along the course of his work, Dr. Plotkin has sought to educate people of all age groups about the tremendous value of our world's rainforests and the lifesaving resources they have provided to past, present, and future generations. Equally as important to Dr. Plotkin has been the welfare of the indigenous communities of these ancient forests, since their fate and that of the rainforest has been shown to depend on one another. As an ethnobotanist--a scientist who studies how, and why, societies have come to use plants for many different purposes--Dr. Plotkin carried out the majority of his research with the Trio Indians of southern Suriname, a small rainforest country in northeastern South America, but has worked in other countries with elder shamans from Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and Brazil. Dr. Plotkin has a long history of work with other organizations to promote conservation and awareness of our natural world, having served as Research Associate in Ethnobotanical Conservation at the Botanical Museum of Harvard University; Director of Plant Conservation at the World Wildlife Fund; Vice President of Conservation International; and Research Associate at the Department of Botany of the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Plotkin is now President of the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), a non-profit organization he co-founded with his fellow conservationist and wife, Liliana Madrigal in 1996, now enjoying over 11 years of successes dedicated to protecting the biological and cultural diversity of the Amazon. ACT has been a member of the United Nations Environment Programme Global 500 Roll of Honour since 2002, and was recognized as using "Best Practices Using Indigenous Knowledge" by UNESCO, the United Nation's cultural organization. Dr. Plotkin has authored or co-authored several books and scientific publications, most notably his popular work Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice, which is currently in its twenty-seventh printing and has also been published in Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. Acclaimed film-maker Miranda Smith produced a related documentary titled the The Shaman's Apprentice featuring Dr. Plotkin's work, which has since garnered awards at sixteen different film festivals. His children's book The Shaman's Apprentice ? A Tale of the Amazon Rainforest (1998) co-authored with Lynne Cherry was called "the outstanding environmental and natural history title of the year." by Smithsonian magazine. The author of numerous scientific papers and reports, Dr. Plotkin's critically acclaimed book, Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature's Healing Secrets, was published in early 2000. His most recent book (coauthored with Michael Shnayerson), The Killers Within: The Deadly Rise of Drug-Resistant Bacteria , was published by Little, Brown in September of 2002. It was hailed as "One of the Top Ten Science Books of the Year" by Discover magazine. In 1998, he played a leading role in the Academy Award-nominated IMAX film Amazon. Time Magazine hailed him as an environmental "Hero for the Planet" in 1999. Dr. Plotkin's work has been featured in a PBS Nova documentary, in an Emmy-winning Fox TV documentary, on the NBC Nightly News and Today Show, CBS' 48 Hours and in Life, Newsweek, Smithsonian, Elle, People, The New York Times, along with appearances on National Public Radio. Smithsonian magazine's 35th anniversary issue profiled Dr. Plotkin as one of "35 who made a difference" in November 2005. In March 2007, he was honored with the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens Conservation Award. In March 2008, Dr. Plotkin and Liliana Madrigal were awarded with the Skoll Foundation's prestigious Award for Social Entrepreneurship. Dr Plotkin was educated at Harvard, Yale and Tufts University. |
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Programs:
Rainforest Conservation, New Jungle Medicine, the Spice Trade, and
the South Beach Diet While newspapers teem with stories on rainforest destruction, innovative approaches that combine ancient shamanic wisdom and 21st century western technology are yielding concrete conservation results. The combination of biotechnology and biodiversity offers great promise in terms of the development of novel therapeutic compounds. This talk takes an historical approach to the discovery, utilization and protection of rainforest resources and shows how our long term interactions with this most fascinating of forests has led to everything from the birth of capitalism to some of our newest dietary trends. The Shaman's Apprentice From The Amazon: How To Live Forever |
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