This volume showcases current ethnobiological accounts of the ways that people use plants to promote human health and well-being. The goal in this volume is to highlight some contemporary examples of how plants are central to various aspects of healthy environments and healthy minds and bodies. Authors employ diverse analytic frameworks, including: interpretive and constructivist, cognitive, political-ecological, systems theory, phenomenological, and critical studies of the relationship between humans, plants and the environment. The case studies represent a wide geographical range and explore the diversity in the health appeals of plants and herbs. The volume begins by considering how plants may intrinsically be ‘healthful’ and the notion that ecosystem health may be a literal concept used in contemporary efforts to increase awareness of environmental degradation. The book continues with the exploration of the ways in which medically-pluralistic societies demonstrate the entanglements between the environment, the state and its citizens. Profit driven models for the extraction and production of medicinal plant products are explored in terms of health equity and sovereignty. Some of the chapters in this volume work to explore medicinal plant knowledge and the globalization of medicinal plant knowledge. The translocal and global networks of medicinal plant knowledge are pivotal to productions of medicinal and herbal plant remedies that are used by people in all variety of societies and cultural groups. Humans produce health through various means and interact with our environments, especially plants, in order to promote health. The ethnographic accounts of people, plants, and health in this volume will be of interest to the fields of anthropology, biology and ethnobiology, as well as allied disciplines.

Traditionally used to treat a wide range of ailments, the bark of the pau d'arco tree is today widely used as an immunostimulant. Many have found it to be particularly valuable in managing allergies associated with Candida. Kenneth Jones describes the usage of pau d'arco in South American folk medicine, and gives clear directions for its preparation as a tea and as an extract.

Whether sharing knowledge attained through a sacred plant ritual, the romance she finds with a leader of the Huaorani, or the tarantulas that frighten her while she bathes, Diane Terezakis authentically shares her experiences as if unashamedly talking to a best friend. Dianes quest for the elusive, yet eclectic state of enlightenment is an inner and outer journey, where she seeks to acquire shamanic wisdom as well as to learn about herself, and although she has a game plan in mind, Diane follows the path that the Universe governs. Part One: Civilization, chronicles the introductory voyage that takes the author through the Ecuadorian Amazon and Andes, meeting shamans she wants to return and study with, the indigenous and the gringos she befriends along the way, the scrapes she gets into, and the reflections on significant episodes in her life. In Part Two: Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru, the authors mentor, a shaman in the Ecuadorian Andes, Dr. Valentin Hampejs, helps point the way toward other medicine men for her to supplement her studies with after her disappointing stay with the Secoya shaman, Don Cesario. Enlightening rituals with Dr. Hampejs, a romantic relationship with the Huaorani, Moi, and fun times with her quasi-cousins help balance her disappointment. Chauvinism, greed, and alcohol have marred many of the medicine men that the author finds. Journeying through the Andes while El Ninos ravishing of roads has made travel dangerous, Terezakis precariously makes her way into the Peruvian Andes, plagued by recurring dreams with important messages that eventually lead her back home. Elixir qualities aside, inhabitants of the Amazon jungle and the Andes Mountains (symbolized by Maiz) are becoming perpetually Westernized (symbolized by Coca-Cola emblems throughout South America), and the terrain is sadly changing. Oil companies decimate the Amazon daily, and cultures in both vicinities are losing their hold. As if catching fleeting moments on film, Diane attempts, through her memoir, to immortalize the beauty of the jungle and the mountains while capturing comic moments, vulnerable, endearing episodes, thought-provoking tragedies, and painful disillusionment. Dianes passages weave into an unforgettable scrapbook of her travels in South America.

Ecotourism is a unique facet of globalization, promising the possibility of reconciling the juggernaut of development with ecological/cultural conservation. Davidov offers a comparative analysis of the issue using a case study of indigenous Kichwa people of Ecuador and their interactions with globalization and transnational systems.