[Scpg] 4pm TODAY/Ethnobotany Lecture at SB Botanic Garden/Ancient Wisdom & Modern Medicine: Plants, People, Cultures & Conservation

[Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

ture at Botanic Garden
Ancient Wisdom and Modern Medicine:
Plants, People, Cultures, and Conservation

By
Michael J. Balick, Ph.D.

Saturday, April 11, 2009
Botanic Garden Library
4:00 p.m.
$7 members and students with ID/ $10 non-members
1212 Mission Canyon Rd, Santa Barbara
www.sbbg.org


   The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden is pleased to welcome Dr. Michael 
J. Balick for an evening of plants, people, cultures, and 
conservation.  This lecture discusses the study of plants used in 
traditional healing by indigenous cultures.

Concerned that ancient knowledge of the medicinal qualities of plants 
has "devolved", or disappeared with the passing of 
practitioners,  Dr. Balick, in conjunction with the Belize 
Ethnobotany Project, works with traditional healers and other local 
experts in forest utilization working to collect, identify, and 
evaluate thousands of plant specimens gathered from tropical 
ecosystems.  In addition to Central America, work is also being 
conducted on Micronesia and in the Dominican community in New York 
City to capture this knowledge and teach it to the next generation.

Traditional knowledge of medicinal plants can be of great value in 
addressing contemporary issues in drug development, public health, 
and conservation. "What we now do is add the modern tools of science 
to this old discipline," said Balick.  "Also, we educate. We try to 
help urban peoples see how much we all depend on plants. Plants are 
the bottom line in life. They support all of life."  Seeking to 
fulfill this potential, scientists find themselves in a race against 
time, with both tropical forests being destroyed and indigenous 
knowledge about the uses of the plants and their environment rapidly 
being lost.

For more information, contact (805) 682-4726, or www.sbbg.org
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