I seek his vision. Iquitos An endless palette of greens shifts in light filtering through cloud patterns and treetops. With 11 times the water volume of the Mississippi, the river system moistens the strongest lungs of the earth. As ill-advised development schemes narrow species diversity, jungle shamans are also endangered. These medicine men and spiritual leaders carry rain-forest knowledge accumulated by countless generations.
Most villages are now without a leader.
Remaining shamans are elderly, and do not have apprentices. As they die, libraries burn. This blows an ill wind for modern medicine, which acquires many of its clinically useful prescription drugs from the rain forest and the realm of folk medicine. Of 80,000 Amazon plant species, only a fraction have been thoroughly analyzed. One shaman hanging tough is Marcelino Nolorbe Talexio.