Phyllis A. Balch, CNC
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 As they have for centuries, indigenous rainforest tribes around the world rely on the forests for virtually all their medicines. They too have incorporated herbs into their religions and everyday lives. Researchers estimate that the world's rainforests contain literally thousands of potentially useful medicinal plants. Rainforests exist on every continent, though most research attention is currently directed at the rainforests of South America, particularly in the Amazon, and of the South Pacific Islands. |
Rainer W. Bussmann and Douglas Sharon
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 However, while the Amazon rainforests have received a great deal of scientific attention, the mountain forests and remote highland areas are still relatively unexplored. The first floristic studies were conducted in the 1920's [28], followed by decades without any further research activity. Until the late 1990s little work had been done on vegetation structure, ecology, and ethnobotany in the mountain forests and
PLANTS of the FOUR WINDS
Issues in Ethnobotany
Moran, King and Carlson [83] trace the emergence of biodiversity prospecting. |
Rainer W. Bussmann and Douglas Sharon
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 Additionally, the region is characterized by a rapid transition between the humid mountain forests of the Andes and the dry, deciduous forests and deserts of the Peruvian lowlands.
Considerable progress has been made in the overall taxonomic treatment of the flora of the country as a whole l1-2-34!. However, the southern part of the country is relatively unexplored. The first floristic studies were conducted in the 1940s(5f>1, followed by decades without any further research activity. Until the late 1990s little work had been done on vegetation structure, ecology, and ethnobotany. |
Dr. Sharon Moalem
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 The savanna theory holds that our apelike ancestors abandoned the dark African forests and moved into the great grassy plains, perhaps because of climate changes that led to massive environmental change. In the forest, food was plentiful—fruits, nuts, and leaves could be found in abundance. But out in the savanna, life was tougher, so the theory goes, and our ancestors had to find new ways to get food. Males began to hunt bravely for meat among the herds of grazing animals. |
David R. Montgomery
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 European forests shrank to a narrow fringe around the Mediterranean. Early Europeans lived through this frozen time by following and culling herds of large animals. Some of these species, notably wooly rhinos and giant elk, did not survive the transition to the postglacial climate.
Extreme environmental shifts also isolated human populations and helped differentiate people into the distinct appearances we know today as races. Skin shields our bodies and critical organs from ultraviolet radiation. |
| There in northwestern China he found a landscape deeply incised by gullies, where intensive cultivation after clearing of forests from steep, highly erodible slopes was sending the soil downstream. Lowdermilk was convinced that deforestation alone would not cause catastrophic erosion—shrubs and then trees simply grew back too fast. Instead, farmers cultivating steep slopes left the soil vulnerable to erosion during intense summer downpours. |
| Erosion is only indirectly related to the destruction of the former extensive forests, but is directly related to the cultivation of the slope lands for the production of food crops."
Rather than the axe, the plow had shaped the region's fate, as Lowdermilk observed. "Man has no control over topography and little over the type of rainfall which descends on the land. He can, however, control the soil layer, and can, in mountainous areas, determine quite definitely what will become of it. |
| The worldwide decimation of forests and fisheries provide obvious examples, but the ongoing loss of the soil that supplies more than 95 percent of our food is far more crucial. Other, nonmarket mechanisms— whethet cultural, religious, or legal—must rise to the challenge of maintaining an industrial society with postindustrial agriculture. Counterintu-itively, for the world beyond the loess belts this challenge requires more people on the land, pracricing inrensive organic agriculture on smaller farms, using technology but not high capitalization. |
| Starting on a narrow strip of land on the coastal plain, they brought Meso-potamian agricultural practices to their new home, a land of cedar forests with little flat land to cultivate. After plowing up the narrow coastal plain, Phoenicians cleared sloping fields and sold the timber to their treeless neighbors in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Whether the great cedar forest was cut primarily for timber or farmland, the two went hand in hand as farms spread up the slopes.
Pounded by heavy winter rains, soil eroded rapidly from plowed hillsides. |
Joerg Gruenwald, Ph.D.
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 Habitat: The plant is commonly found in woods and forests throughout Europe.
Production: Wood Sorrel is the fresh plant, in blossom, of Oxalis acetosella.
Other Names: Cuckoo Bread, Cuckowes Meat, Fairy Bells, Green Sauce, Hallelujah, Shamrock, Sour Trefoil, Stickwort, Stubwort, Surelle, Three-leaved Grass, Wood Sour
ACTIONS AND PHARMACOLOGY
COMPOUNDS
Oxalic acid (0.3-1.25%)
EFFECTS
The drug, including the green parts of the plant, contains clover acid, which in small amounts, effects gallbladder activity (diuretic). The fresh plant has a high Vitamin C content. |
| Habitat: Butternut is indigenous to the forests of the U.S.
Production: Butternut bark is the inner rind of Juglans cinerea.
Other Names: White Walnut, Oil Nut, Lemon Walnut, Black Walnut
ACTION AND PHARMACOLOGY
COMPOUNDS
Fatty oil
Tannins
Juglone
Juglandis folium
EFFECTS
Vermifuge, laxative, tonic.
INDICATIONS AND USAGE
Preparations of the bark are used for disorders of the gallbladder, for hemorrhoids and in the treatment of skin diseases. Juglone has antimicrobial, antineoplastic and antiparasitic properties as well as being a gentle laxative. |
| Production: The drug is gathered in forests and should be dried quickly.
Not To Be Confused With: Other Adonis species may be added to Adonidis herba.
Other Names: False Hellebore, Yellow Pheasant's Eye, Ox-eye, Sweet Vernal, Pheasant's Eye, Red Morocco, Rose-a-rubie
ACTIONS AND PHARMACOLOGY
COMPOUNDS
Cardioactive steroid gylcosides (cardenolids): including adonitoxin, k-strophanthoside, k-strophanthoside-|3 and cymarin
Flavonoids: including vitexin and luteolin
EFFECTS
Adonis has a positive inotropic effect. Animal tests showed a tonic effect on the veins. |
| Habitat: Indigenous to the forests of Indonesia and the Malaysian peninsula. Cultivated mainly on Java, in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.
Production: Curcuma is cultivated and harvested in the second year of growth. After the rhizome has been washed, the main thick root is isolated, cut and dried at a temperature of 50°C. |
Andreas Moritz
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 The situation changed with the erosion of forests and building of dams. Today, there are merely 12-20 minerals found in plant foods.
Whatever is contained in modern chemical fertilizers (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) may be sufficient to raise normal-looking crops; yet the healthy-looking plant foods are short of minerals, which is reflected in their poor taste. This may cause some mineral deficiencies in the body. We are consistently missing out on the majority of minerals. And if the digestive system does not function efficiently, a health crisis may arise. |
Mehmet C. Oz., M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
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 The benefits of soy phytoestrogen seem best achieved by societies that have used moderate amounts of these products for generations-rather than Americans forcing down entire tofu forests in a single bound.
Saturated fats cause constriction of arteries after a meal. The fluctuation between dilation and constriction causes the flash. Fewer saturated fats equal fewer symptoms.
YOU Tip: Consider Other Meds. The epilepsy and pain relief drug gabapentin has been shown to ease both the severity and the frequency of hot flashes by almost 50 percent. |
Donna Jackson Nakazawa
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 In a world of well-vacuumed homes, scrubbed bathrooms and kitchens, and more time spent in minivans than mucking about through woods, forests, and farmland, coupled with massive vaccination campaigns that prevent full-fledged infection from many childhood diseases, children's immune systems are, in a sense, overprotected.
If a child's immune system were a military academy, you might think of invading pathogens (be they bacteria or viruses) as sergeants providing a comprehensive set of military drills. |
Dr. Sharon Moalem
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| Sea levels dropped by hundreds of feet as water froze and stayed in the ice caps. forests and grasslands went into a steep decline. Coastlines were surrounded by hundreds of miles of ice. Icebergs were common as far south as Spain and Portugal. The great, mountainous glaciers marched south again. The Younger Dryas had arrived, and the world was changed.
Though humanity would survive, the short-term impact, especially for those populations that had moved north, was devastating. |
Mark Lynas
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 As the snows disappear, so will much of the wildlife and the verdant forests that tourists currently trek through on their arduous journey to the roof of the African continent.
Ghost rivers of the Sahara
Far to the north of Kilimanjaro, in the Sahel, another drought-stricken area could by this time be experiencing some blessed relief. The Sahelian region of North Africa has long been synonymous with climatic disaster: during the 1970s and 80s famines struck the area with such severity that they sparked massive humanitarian relief efforts like Band Aid and Live Aid. |
| By the time the glaciers have disappeared, so will the higher forests, depriving downstream rivers of 15 million cubic metres of run-off every year, according to one estimate. In contrast, the loss of glacial water input will likely add up to less than 1 million cubic metres annually: significant, but not catastrophic. The diminishing water supply will affect everything from fish stocks to hydroelectric production downriver in poverty-stricken Tanzania. |
| Instead, the crucial water link for Kilimanjaro is not the glaciers, but the forests. The montane forest belt at between 1,600 and 3,100 metres provides 96 per cent of the water coming from the mountain - this lush tangle of trees, ferns and shrubs not only captures Kilimanjaro's torrential rainfall like a giant sponge, but also traps moisture from the clouds which drape themselves almost permanently around the mountain's middle slopes. |
| Yet when the big drought came in ad 1130, they were vulnerable - population growth had already diminished the society's ecological base through the overuse of forests and agricultural land. Most people died, whilst the survivors went on to eke out a living in easily defended sites on the tops of steep cliffs. Several locations show evidence of violent conflict - including skulls with cut marks from scalping, skeletons with arrowheads inside the body cavity, and teeth marks from cannibalism.
Indeed, the whole world saw a changing climate in medieval times. |
| This would have dire implications for the 200,000 villages located in or near forests and heavily dependent on them for people's livelihoods.
The research confirms an earlier study, published in 2001, which projected major agricultural impacts on India for two degrees of global warming. Worst hit would be wheat production in the northern states of Haryana, Punjab and western Uttar Pradesh. Some states like West Bengal would gain - though to a lesser extent, and overall the country would lose 8 per cent of net revenue as a result. |
| These fossil leaves didn't come from lush, tall forests like those in England: growth patterns in the wood showed that they came from stunted shrubs which grew prostrate along the ground, presumably because of the harsh climate and strong winds. Even so, the Antarctic of today supports no plants anywhere outside the northern tip of the Peninsula, let alone near the frigid centre of the continent. |
Thomson Healthcare, Inc.
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| Production: The drug is gathered in forests and should be dried quickly.
Not to be Confused With: Other Adonis species may be added to Adonidis herba.
Other Names: False Hellebore, Yellow Pheasant's Eye, Ox-eye, Sweet Vernal, Pheasant's Eye, Red Morocco, Rose-a-Rubie
ACTIONS AND PHARMACOLOGY
COMPOUNDS
Cardioactive steroid gylcosides (cardenolids): including adonitoxin, k-strophanthoside, k-strophanthoside-P and cymarin
Flavonoids: including vitexin and luteolin
EFFECTS
Adonis has a positive inotropic effect. Animal tests demonstrated a tonic effect on the veins. |
| Habitat: The plant is indigenous to Eurasian forests as far as the Himalayas, Canada and Australia and is cultivated in many regions.
Production: Black currant leaves are the leaves of Ribes nigrum collected during or shortly after the flowering season. Leaves are harvested from cultivated crops during or shortly after flowering. They are air-dried in the shade or carefully at a maximum temperature of 60° C.
Black currant fruits are the ripe fruits, with stalks attached, of Ribes nigrum. Fruits are harvested when fully ripe, and utilized immediately or deep frozen. |
Joerg Gruenwald, Ph.D.
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| Habitat: The plant is indigenous to the forests of southern and central Europe.
Production: Black Hellebore root is the root of Helleborus niger.
Not To Be Confused With: HeUebons foetidus, Helleborus niger and Helleborus viridis are different plants with different active compounds. They may be confused with the subterranean parts of Trollius eurpaeus, Aconitum napellus, Astrantia major; Actaea spicata and Adonis vernalis. |
Adrian Forsyth and Kenneth Miyata
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 There are a number of species that migrate within the tropics, breeding in lowland rain forest but spending part of the year foraging in cloud forests.
These differences affirm the notion that the great diversity of tropical nature holds many secrets; the more we learn, the more apparent our ignorance becomes. We still have a great deal to learn about the ecology and evolution of bird migration, but we are convinced that our central theme will hold true: from both an ecological and an evolutionary perspective, migrant birds are integral parts of tropical nature. |
Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe
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 When the Spaniards first settled here following the conquest of Peru, they came across extensive forests of wild cacao; this was the forastero variety of Theobroma cacao, native to tropical South America. Shortly after the beginning of the 17th century, these stands came under cultivation, merely by clearing the forest around the cacao trees. |
| Lords of the Forest: The Classic Maya
While the Izapans were developing major elements of lowland Mesoamerican culture such as hieroglyphic writing, the calendar, monumental carving, an elite mythological cycle centering upon the Hero Twins, and the elaboration of cacao as an elite drink, the Maya cultural giant was stirring in the forests of northern Guatemala and southern Yucatan. By about AD 250, the lowland Maya had entered their Classic phase. |
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