Finally ...

in our quest to find new plant medicines - we have effectively become "21'st Century Indians". We discovered during our trip that the real Indians of S. America have deep political problems. For this reason, they rarely communicate, or only at a superficial level. Therefore, ethnobotany (the relationship between plants and indigenous people) is rapidly becoming Mission Impossible.

this is sad, but really a true statement at this time.

Our solution ... is to become a new generation of Indians. If the societies of S. America will not respect the Earth, then our approach is to preserve the priceless treasures that we still see. We do not collect 'dead plants'. Rather, we preserve rare and precious plants, and they live in our garden. I admit that this was no small task to achieve ... I honestly thought that some of our plants would die, after crossing deserts, mountains, and jungles. But the plants were more hardy than we expected, and we devoted much attention to their care. So we learned - and are still learning - about how to make these plants thrive. Our growing garden is therefore an unusual collection of rare and medicinal plant from many places. And we are now the 21'st Century Indians. A change that we didn't really expect - but it was the only way to try to save the life forms that are truly precious. So we hope that some day in the future - one of these plants will provide new answers for cancer or other serious illnesses.

All the best from us, Peter and Sueli in Brazil