GEO Reportage - 011 - Healing Power from the Rainforest
For generations, the peoples of the rainforest have used the healing substances that nature provides. Quinine, the first effective treatment for malaria, is extracted from the bark of the chinchona tree. Many medicinal plants were only discovered by pharmaceutical companies because they hold a firm place in the traditional medicine of the forest peoples. Will the rainforest countries manage to stand up to the pharmaceutical giants?
Takuma, a 75-year-old shaman, lives in the Xingu National Park in Brazil. He has vowed: “I won’t tell the white people anything. They’ve always just taken.” One day, he meets Marc van Roosmalen, a Dutch botanist who works for the Institute for Amazonian Research. His primary interest lies in the active ingredients hidden in the rainforest.
The film documents how Takuma develops trust in the European—and how he entrusts him with his knowledge of the healing effects of herbs, roots, and tree bark. To whom else would Takuma pass on his knowledge? The young people of his tribe have long been drawn out into the ‘civilized world’.