Late last year while the United Nations’s “COP30” climate change conference was taking place in Brazil, US ethnobotanist and NGO Amazon Conservation Team co-founder Mark Plotkin published a fascinating article on Mongabay reflecting on the last few decades of efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest, which he described as “one of the cradles of global agriculture.” Here Plotkin, named a “Hero for the Planet” by Time magazine almost 30 years ago, expands on what he meant by that and why it is so important for ongoing protection efforts:
DH: What you said about the Amazon being a “cradle of global agriculture. . .” I think that would come as a surprise to a lot of people. Can you clarify?
MP: Most of us in the industrialised world know little and care less about the origin of cultivated crops. How many folks realise that crops as diverse as avocados, chile peppers, cacao/chocolate, manioc, papaya, peanuts and pineapple originated in or near Amazonia? How many know that two of the UK’s main crops - potatoes and corn - originate in tropical America? Put another way: before Columbus “discovered” America, the Swiss had no chocolate, the Irish had no potatoes, the French had no vanilla and the Italians had no tomato sauce! Moreover, wild and semi-domesticated relatives of these specimens must be crossed with our crops to increase resistance to pests, diseases and climate stress. And much deliciousness remains in the rainforest: geographer Nigel Smith has recorded over 100 tasty fruits in just one corner of the Peruvian Amazon!
DH: In terms of importance to people’s diets around the world, manioc - or cassava - seems to be the stand-out, right?
MP: [It’s] the most important “trop crop” - little-known to most inhabitants of the industrial world. Domesticated around 10,000 years ago in the southwestern Amazon, it’s a staple for an estimated 200 million people in Central and South America and feeds about 500 million people a day in tropical Africa - an even more astounding fact when one considers that most forms of cassava are toxic until properly processed. Taking a deadly poisonous plant and transforming it into a foodstuff that nourishes three-quarters of a billion people a day is a living testament to the botanical genius of ancient Amazonian peoples.
DH: I think the first time I ate manioc was in Lima and I didn’t think much of it, but then I tried it out in the Amazon, up the River Las Piedras with a number of indigenous Yine families, and quickly developed a taste for it. What do you know about how it was first transplanted out of the Amazon and what makes it such a great crop?
MP: This so-called “bitter manioc,” filled with cyanide-like compounds, renders it inedible to most mammals and insect pests. It thrives in poor soils, requires little or no fertiliser or irrigation, and is relatively drought-resistant. Recognising its potential as a crop capable of feeding the hungry throughout the Tropics, early European explorers transported cassava far and wide: the Portuguese moved it to Africa in the mid-1500s and to India shortly thereafter. Around the same time, the Spanish are believed to have carried it from their Mexican colony to their holdings in the Philippines. The Dutch transported it from Brazil and Dutch Guiana - Suriname today - to their colonies in Java and the Malay Archipelago.
DH: What about some of the other, lesser-known plants that have only come out of the Amazon much more recently? Acai, for example. That has really boomed!
MP: When I was doing my dissertation research in Amazonia in the 80s, there was a palm fruit cherished by my indigenous colleagues which they called “wapoe” - now more widely known as “acai”, with a current economic value of over a billion dollars a year. Several other Amazonian species have recently made their way into international markets too: camu camu (perhaps the highest Vitamin C content of any known fruit), cupuacu (first cousin to cacao/chocolate with a completely different taste), and sacha inchi (also known commercially as the “Inka peanut”), which possesses enormous amounts of omega-3 fatty acids.
DH: Over the years, in Peru in particular, I’ve come across many delicious fruits that, as far as I’m aware, aren’t sold internationally. Are there any you’re familiar with which you think have potential, but hardly anyone outside the Amazon has heard of yet?
MP: As I mentioned earlier, geographer Nigel Smith noted over 100 little-known - but tasty! - fruit he collected in just one corner of the Amazon, and that by no means exhausts the list of possibilities. Two of the most promising are lulo and cocona, the former tasting like a cross between an apple and a banana, the latter more akin to a savoury tomato - to which they’re both related. Then there’s the sawari tree, which produces one of the tastiest nuts in the world - the first European explorers who encountered this in the northeast Amazon referred to it as the “butter nut” and crushed it into their coffee in lieu of cream. Uvilla, the “jungle grape”, is native to the western Amazon, easily propagated and extremely tasty. I could go on.
DH: I’m curious about your personal trajectory with regards to all this. You’ve been in and out of the Amazon since the late 1970s - I remember reading your book Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice while at Oxford studying anthropology. At what point in your career did you come to realise just how significant the Amazon is in this global, agricultural sense?
MP: I set off for the Amazon at the age of 23. Rather than trying to save the world - or even just the rainforest - I was looking for adventure and whatever came my way. As a student [at Harvard University in the US] of Richard Schultes, I was more interested in plant medicines - particularly hallucinogens - than agricultural products. But I was struck by how many “temperate” plants that I knew mostly from American grocery stores originated - or at least thrived - in tropical regions: from bananas to peanuts to papayas. And I was also struck by how much tastier they were in the tropics, and by their diversity. I’ve had pineapples the size and shape of baseballs and watermelons!
DH: I think I know exactly what you mean. Most of the tastiest things I’ve ever eaten - fruits, mainly - have been in Peru’s Amazon. Either upriver out in the forest somewhere, or in a village or town.
MP: Another thing that opened my eyes - and tastebuds - to this gustatory bounty was learning from shamans how many of their medicinal plants were edible - and vice-versa. The perspective was further expanded by reading the seminal works of fellow ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan whose work with indigenous peoples of the US-Mexico border region showed the same pattern. Recommended reading: “Gathering the Desert” and “The Desert Smells Like Rain.”
DH: I must admit I hadn’t heard of Nabhan until I read your Mongabay article, but I’ve now just read two of his books.
MP: Finally, there was the astounding Rio 1992 Conference [the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, sometimes known as the “Earth Summit”], which brought everyone from Jacques Cousteau to Jane Goodall to George Bush to Fidel Castro together to talk about the importance of global conservation - particularly the Amazon rainforest - for agriculture, for health, for human rights, and for well-being. It was a landmark event for me and - I believe - the vast majority of attendees.
DH: Do you think this increased appreciation for the Amazon as a “cradle of global agriculture”, as you put it, is feeding into efforts to protect it?
MP: I believe increased knowledge of the Amazon as a treasure chest of foodstuffs past, present, and future is yet another compelling argument for preserving it. To that set of arguments you would have to add the importance of tropical rainforests as buffers of climate change. As I said in my last book: “The battle against climate change cannot be won in the Amazon, but it certainly can be lost!”
DH: I enjoyed that book - “The Amazon: What Everyone Needs to Know” - very much.
MP: There’s a saying in Suriname: “To every complex problem, there is always an answer which is both simple and - usually - wrong!” That’s to say: convincing people to “Save the Amazon!” just because of it’s agricultural bounty is not enough, but I have found it an extremely compelling - and accurate - argument to make. At the same time, we need to argue that it is nature’s medicine chest, that it helps regulate climate, that it plays a vital role in the hydrologic cycle, and so on.
DH: Earlier you referred to the “botanical genius of ancient Amazonian peoples.” Of course, that genius is still very much alive today, among the many indigenous peoples that call the Amazon home. How important do you see their role in protecting it?
MP: Thirty years ago, I looked at a map of the entire Amazon and was not surprised to see something which I had witnessed many times on the ground and in the forest: that indigenous peoples were clearly as good - and often better - protectors of the standing forest than park guards. Put another way: 25% of the Amazon rainforest was in “protected areas” - often poorly protected - and another 25% were in the hands of the Indians themselves. Flying over the eastern border of the Xingu Indigenous Reserve in Brazil - home to more than a dozen indigenous groups - brought it into sharp focus: the border of the reserve was delineated by seemingly pristine forest on one side and not even a single tree on the other, which was cattle pasture and soy plantations!
DH: And that was when you founded the Amazon Conservation Team?
MP: Yes. My partner Liliana Madrigal and me decided to establish the Amazon Conservation Team to fill this gap: to work closely with indigenous colleagues to help them protect both their cultures and their ancestral rainforests. It was our recognition of the botanical genius of peoples long considered “primitive” by the outside world that spurred us to make this decision: that tribal colleagues could flourish while maintaining a - basically - intact forest was a challenge that few scientists and development planners have been able to match! So this botanical wizardry is not limited to their abilities to select effective therapeutic or delicious and nutritious species but also operates at an ecosystem level.
DH: Mark, it has been fascinating. Any last thoughts?
MP: I’ll leave you with the two most stunning examples of this botanical genius that come immediately to mind: 1) taking a deadly poisonous plant - i.e. cassava - and domesticating it into a crop that now feeds three-quarters of a billion people and 2) combining two different plant species in a forest of tens of thousands into a brew -ayahuasca - that promises to revolutionise the treatment of intractable diseases - such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, among others - clearly demonstrates that the Amazon’s indigenous groups know things that we westerners do not. Failure to partner with them to protect the rainforest and find new uses for its plants, animal and fungi - only where they are willing to share and are fairly compensated - would be an astonishingly stupid mistake!
DH: Mark, thank you very much.
To learn more, see www.amazonteam.org, www.markplotkin.com and Mark's podcast, "Plants of the Gods."