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California
State University-Fullerton professor of geography Robert Voeks
spent several months in Brazil in spring 1999 cataloging the medicinal
plant knowledge of a rural population. He focused on measuring
the rate of loss of medicinal knowledge among these people. A
1985 alumnus of the Fulbright Student Program, Voeks taught undergraduate
and graduate courses at the Universidade Federal da Bahia and
then spent three months exploring the Diamond Plateau of the State
of Bahia and studying the ethnobotanical knowledge of tropical
forest healers.
With acres of South American rainforest disappearing daily, this
research is becoming increasingly important. "This project," he
explained, "will contribute to our understanding of a serious
environmental concern--the loss of plant knowledge among traditional
societies."
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