In this episode, we discuss some of the world’s most remote communities: the isolated peoples of the Amazon rainforest.

Most of the Amazon’s some 400 Indigenous groups have made contact with the outside world over the course of the past five centuries, but a rare few remain off the map, living in almost incomprehensible harmony with the rainforest. Yet the expansion of human activity in the Amazon puts these groups at risk of annihilation, threatening not only the survival of their peoples but also their wisdom, mysticism, languages, and unparalleled knowledge of the forest’s species and cycles.

As the rainforest shrinks, can its isolated peoples somehow stay protected? In this GLF Live episode, originally aired in September 2021, renowned ethnobotanist Mark J. Plotkin takes us into his 30-year career of experiences living with Amazonians and studying their traditional plant uses to unravel this question and look at what the future could hold for some of the most ancient cultures on Earth.

Listen to Mark’s podcast, Plants of the Gods: https://markplotkin.com/podcast/