Amazon

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Perceptions of the Amazon

are mostly mythical.

But in Amazonia,reality

is more amazing than mythology

Amazon

South America has the biggest river

Largest forest, the longest mountain range

And the greatest variety of life forms

of all the continents on Earth

Rivers from five nations

Pour into the vast flood land

of equatorial Brazil

To form the greatest moving

mass of fresh water in the world

The Amazon river flows

toward the rising sun

And with it 1/5 of the

continental water on the planet

Among the distant sources of the Amazon

is the timeless land of the Incas

Men of the Kallawaya tribe

were medicine-men to the royal family

In by gone days of an empire

larger than that of Rome

Even now Kallawaya men journey throughout

the Andes healing people with magic and medicinal plants.

Julio Mamani will follow the tradition of its people

It saddens me there was no plant,or magic

that could save my mother when she got sick

Whisper in pukina,the secret language

of the Incas

Mysteries of the healing arts are past

generation to generation

I've made a vow to go to the tropical forest

below our mountain home

And return with plants that will

increase our power

To cure illness and prolong life

Akomani the god mountain of our people

Watches over the kayawaya

And has done so since our

earliest beginnings

It is said that water trickling from the glaciers

of Akomani will be a great river

Sipping the melt of ancient ice

brings rejuvenation

When I reach the tropical forest perhaps

I can trade the glacier water for an unknown elixir

That will prolong life.

Incas once moved the highlands where source

rivers of the Amazon

gouged-out some of the deepest canyons

on Earth

Machu Pichu,the lost city of the incas

lies on the 200 miles as the condor flies

from Mamani's home land

Below the citadel the Urubamba river cuts its canyon ever deeper

on its rush to join the

Amazon

In a few short miles from mountain peaks

to tropical forests

The traveler passes through as many ecological

zones as on a trip from the north pole to equator.

Below the mountains the trees become

an endless sea of green

Dr. Mark Plotkin is also a medicine-man

Like Mamani he's in search of plants

That will heal humanity ills

He is an ethno-botanist

His hope :
to find cures to diseases which

western medicine has not conquered

There's a remarkable connection between

the plants and the people of the forests

Virtually every useful medicinal or agricultural

plant has come to us from the rainforests

Where's first learn from indigenal people

Dr. Plotkin is driven by a dread that some

species may disappear

before their life saving attributes are discovered

In our search for new treatments for the

diseases that plague us

The Amazon represents one of the most

promising places to look.

At the LaCueva de las Sechusas

I can reach the edge of the legendary forest

It seems to me a mystical gateway

to the forest beyond

Mamani has reached the flatland of Amazonia

A region almost large enough to cover

the face of the moon

The Amazon basin is home to the planet

greatest celebration of diversity.

For millions of years

Environmental conditions have been favorable

to a profusion of life

The canopy is largely unexplored

Its upper tip where most of the life goes on

has barely been visited

It averages 50 feet

And amounts to 20.000 cubic miles of

wood,water,air and green leafs

Antonio is a shaman of the kokana people

He,s my friend and my teacher

He's knowledge of the healing properties

of the Amazon forest is extraordinary

No one knows how many species of living things

exist in 2 million square miles of forest canopy

The Amazon houses a gigantic ecological machine

of global importance.

Is a world's resource at risk

The biodiversity of the Amazon is unique.

The only place of its kind in the world

In the light and worm and water

Are millions of different species

And many more perhaps unknown

The Sloth called perezoso or lazy-one in Spanish

Swims as well as most quadrupeds

A jaguar often jumps in to cross

a water way

At 500 pounds the tapir is the largest land

animal native to South America.

In mid-year, Amazon rises to maximum flood

As much as 45 feet above its November minimum

With the deluge,aquatic life invades

the once dry forest floor

The Pirarucu is one of the main food fish

of the Amazon

It can exceed 6 feet in length and

200 pounds in weight

The Pipato is almost invisible

until it eats

Electric eels guile death with 500 volts shock

The Piranha has the sharpest teeth of all

the predatory fish

Of all the creatures of the Amazon,the pink

dolphin is the most celebrated

The thousands of miles of waterways remain

the primary means of travel in the Amazon

The people of the river are known as Kabokos

Part Indian, part Portuguese

Sometimes the blood of Africans

Many are as skillful as the Kallawaya

with herbal remedies

We have much to learn from one another

In our village, we used Kebowei to stop bleeding

Here I have been shown how to dress a wound

with leafs that will coagulate blood

Most remedies and medicinal cures used by the

kobokos come from the Indians

We know that fungus provided the world with

Penicillin and other antibiotics

But the potential of tropical phungae

remains largely unknown

For millions of years the Amazon was

unhabitated by humans

The Indians arrived during the last ice age

Which ended thousands of years ago

After the Europeans arrived 500 years ago

In quest of land,slaves and gold

Indiginous people fled deeper into

the wilderness

More than 400 tribes have been identified

in the Amazon basin

Others may remain undiscovered

With no sense of time beyond tomorrow,they live

in hidding,cradeled in a everlasting present

As late as 1943 the upper ridges of the Xingu

river were largely unexplored

Orlando Villas Bas and his brothers left

Sao Polo with an expedition called

Xingu River adventure

Some things only happen once

in the history of the world

It was a moment in time that

cannot be repeated.

After three years and 3000 km

of a path cut with machetes

We encountered for the first time

the Indian population of the upper Xingu

Very little was known about them and they

know only enough of the outside world to stay hidden as in centuries past

The Villas boys won acclaim for their success

in postponing the bulldozing march of civilization into the Xingu

In time the Villas boys were overcome by

roadbuilders,malaria and old age

But their dream for survival of the Indians

lives on

Sydney Possuelo carries on the legendary work

of the brothers Villas Boas

Sydney's task is to seek out isolated tribes

and promote legislation to keep Indian lands

off-limits to all outsiders

North of the Amazon mainstream

Lives a tribe of Indians known as Zo

I believe the Indians should only be contacted

when is necessary to protect them

It's a dilemma

Do we artificially isolate them ?

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