Using the forest as a pharmacy

This week: In the heart of the Amazon communities use nature to treat all their ailments, HEALTH takes a tour of the forest with a local shaman.

HEALTH

By Eve IRVINE

Kurubene Page, doesn’t argue against the virtues of the “white mans medicine” but he believes that nature provides everything necessary to cure our ailments. The sataremawe community is less than an hours boat trip outside of the city of Manaus. Despite access to western medicine it prefers to rely on the forest for its medical needs.

“We are not arguing against the white man's medicine because we can also use that sometimes, but the problem with it is that, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. When we are ill we can always put together a concoction suitable from the forest..” Page notes.

For Page, a bit of bark can ease a headache, some leaves can treat diabetes. He now spends most of his days in Manaus where he runs a stall selling his natural remedies to locals there.

Over on the Venezuelan side of the Amazon however the health of the Yanomami tribe is no longer thriving. The new flu, influenza A has struck and put the population under pressure. At least seven people have died and hundreds more are infected. Member of the tribe, Dr Davi Kopenawa says that “the health situation of the Yanomami in Venezuela is not good. I'm very sad because we know this disease never hit members of the tribe in Brazil. I believe the children have not received the proper shots and the people aren't protected. I think many will die.

In the eighties and nineties nearly twenty percent of the Yanomami died because of malaria and the flu viruses which were spread by illegal miners working in the region.

Finally, HEALTH looks at a little known treasure of the rainforest, the acai fruit. It grows on the top of the Amazonian palm tree and has a dark brown plum colour. Its dark colouring made people think that the fruit was rich in iron and could be used to treat anaemia but according to research in laboratories in Manaus, this is not the case. However, according to Doctor Lucia Kiyoko Ozaki, the small berry does have exceptional energetic qualities.

"It's rich in energy and rich in fibre. That richness is thanks to a great pigment which is called anthocyanin. Açai also contains other minerals like potassium, calcium and magnesium and all that means we really ought to eat more of it," she notes.

Mairead Dundas

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