Skip to content
The purpose of the 

EthnoMedicine
Preservation Project®

is to preserve the medicinal plant
knowledge of indigenous cultures…
through documentation, exchange of
information, and preservation of habitat…
to keep the diversity of this knowledge
available for future generations.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION


Indigenous peoples represent living libraries of medicinal plant knowledge that are being lost as they merge with modern society. Each culture contains a unique system of medicine with different degrees of emphasis on the mental, physical and spiritual aspects of healing. These cultures have traditionally depended on the living transmission of techniques from master to apprentice. The young people who would normally continue this living link as apprentices to the ‘medicine people’ of these cultures have been abandoning the often primitive environments of their ancestors in pursuit of a ‘better’ life, leaving the elders with no one to teach.

It is not enough to record this knowledge in books, because many of the people in these cultures do not read, and the vitality of the experience is only partially understood through words.

The EthnoMedicine Preservation Project® (EMPP) is a non-profit organization, founded in 1993. For 30 years, EMPP has documented medicinal plant knowledge of indigenous cultures in Peru, Belize, Australia and India.

Logo-EMPP

Perú Andes

Many medicinal plants passed through trade routes between the cultures of the Amazon and the Andes. Therefore, our work expanded into the Andes, documenting the medicinal plants used by the ‘”Hampeq Runas” and “Hampeq Warmys”. (curanderos and curanderas) who walk from pueblo to isolated pueblo to administer the medicinal treatments that they have used for centuries.

Peru Debra
Cooking

Perú Amazon

Many medicinal plants passed through trade routes between the cultures of the Amazon and the Andes. Therefore, our work expanded into the Andes, documenting the medicinal plants used by the ‘”Hampeq Runas” and “Hampeq Warmys”. (curanderos and curanderas) who walk from pueblo to isolated pueblo to administer the medicinal treatments that they have used for centuries.

Belize

The next project of the EthnoMedicine Preservation Project® was to document the work of Dr. Rosita Arvigo in Belize, who has been researching and documenting the uses of medicinal plants in Belize for the past 30 years. She has dedicated her life to preserving the knowledge of several Maya healers who are now deceased, and is the only living link to their experience.

Don-Elijio
India

India

In South India, we are working with Dr. S. Rajan, Field Botanist at the Survey of Medicinal Plants and Collection Unit in Udhagamandalam and the Tribal Museum. For over 20 years, Dr. Rajan has been documenting the medicinal plant knowledge of the six most threatened pre-literate tribal groups. We have been filming these remote tribal groups for the past two years.

Australia

In Australia, we are working with Yidumduma Bill Harney, the last fully initiated male Custodian of the Wardaman people in the Northern Territory. Growing up in the early 1930’s on his traditional lands, young Yidumduma worked with his fellow Wardaman on Willeroo Station, and then going Walkabout, continuing his ceremonial ‘Bush University’ education.

Austra