Old Growth Timber, Peruvian Amazon. Photo by Zoe Helene
The Amazon rainforest is the greatest of all forests on earth, home to an estimated eighty-thousand higher plants, home to perhaps millions of types of insects, and a broad array of rapidly diminishing populations of rare and unusual animals. The Amazon rainforest provides twenty percent of the world’s oxygen. It is the most magnificent of all natural places for its rich diversity of life and unrivaled verdant beauty.
What is Sustainability? As it applies to medicinal plants and products made from them, sustainability involves providing natural resources for human health needs in a manner that supports the health and diversity of the natural environment, and incorporates labor and wage practices that enable all people in the system to flourish. In a sustainable system, all life is supported and allowed to prosper.