Worldwide demand for effective evidence based herbal medicine is increasing. Many people today are returning to herbal medicine as a result of the greater awareness of health issues, promoted by new government health policies and a growing distrust in conventional synthetic medicines.
Modern medical science is also taking advantage of this vast herbal tradition in its search for new drug discovery. This research is contributing enormous scientific literature on herbal actions and is attributing to the synthesis of herbal wisdom with modern scientific principles. In particular the world’s rainforests are viewed as some of the last uncharted territory for new medicinal discovery. As one of the most evolved and diverse ecosystems on earth, the Southeast Asian rain forest is a rich source of medicinal herbs. It is believed that forest dwellers in Southeast Asia use some 6,500 different plants to treat illness.
These same rainforests have supplied the western world with herbs and spices for centuries. Malaysia in particular, with its many indigenous groups, offers an invaluable source of knowledge in medicinal plants from the rain forest. The main indigenous medicinal systems of Malaysia are Traditional Malay Medicine, with influences from Java, India and Arabia, and that practiced by the numerous aboriginal races. Of these, many still live according to traditional ways in the jungle, with a few still preferring to avoid influences of civilization and continue to lead a semi-nomadic existence deep in the rain forests of Borneo. These races offer us invaluable ethnobotanical information.
The herbal knowledge they provide comes from centuries of human experience of trial and error in herbal action, safety and toxicity. Knowledge that helps us in our search for cures for disease and food for our growing world population. We are faced with a race against time, however, as the effects of rapid development of the rain forests is leading to not only global environmental consequences but also the irretrievable loss of medicinal species diversity and the loss of the ethnobotanical knowledge of the indigenous peoples found there. With the passing of each of the elders, the medicine men and women, a mine of valuable knowledge is lost forever.
At Rainforest Herbs we understand the importance of documenting and promoting ethnobotanical research and the cultivation of medicinal herbs in their natural rain forest environment, as well as education in the sustainable collection of raw materials. We firmly believe that to safeguard and maintain the rain forest ecosystem, the needs of the present must be met without compromising the needs of future generations.
In all corners of the globe, people are waking us to the immense importance of preserving the rain forest ecology and at Rainforest Herbs we believe that by connecting to the holistic power of rain forest medicinal plants, a positive shift in environmental awareness can occur alongside the improvements to our health.
