You can hear them at night, hard-bitten men wielding snarling chainsaws in the jungle, ripping deep into the heartwood of magnificent old-growth trees, the amplified crashing of the arboreal giants driving to earth, splitting other trees in half in their fall, ripping tons of branches down along the way, smashing to ground with thunder that shakes the roots of all other trees for acres. They log illegally and they log non-stop, grim-faced, bearing rifles and ready to use them, working with spotlights where they cut, dodging poisonous snakes, and loading gigantic logging trucks in the forest darkness, trucks that grind and heave over rutted dirt tracks, some deep in mud, working when it doesn’t rain, working when it does, these huge mechanical beasts with bright headlights glaring far into the deep rainforest green. I have heard them cutting at night, seen them rolling by, men sweating and grimy conveying stacks of giant tree sections chained to battered truck bodies, roaring engines belching great spumes of thick black exhaust smoke, destroying the greatest rainforest on earth. The loggers do this for money. There is no other reason. Somewhere in the dark heart of every man who takes a chainsaw to a massive tree in the Amazon, there is recognition, however much suppressed, that the destruction of the greatest rainforest on earth is morally wrong. Any person who assesses the situation with an informed and sober mind can tell that this is a disaster and disgrace of epic proportions, a spree of sickening slaughter that will go down in history as one of the worst of all wrong-headed human campaigns.

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. The Amazon rainforest is home to the mighty Amazon river, the largest of all the rivers on earth, the greatest body of fresh water in all of known history. The great Amazon is also home to many other very large rivers, the Rio Negro, Rio Blanco, Rio Napo, Ucayali to name a few. The Amazon rainforest is home to a last remaining couple hundred thousand native people, scattered throughout the entirety of its boundaries. And the Amazon is home to medicines, perhaps thousands of extraordinarily beneficial plant-derived medicines, some of which are already well known and widely employed, and others yet to be discovered. Given that only an estimated three percent of the plants in the Amazon have been investigated for their potential medicinal value, the forest may easily yield potent cures for AIDS, diabetes, all types of cancer and other major health disorders. This is likely.

Over the course of time, I have developed a tremendous love for the Amazon and its people, and an abiding sense of heartbreak at the demise of the forest and its native cultures. On an ongoing basis I work in the Amazon to help develop sustainable projects with medicinal plants. And I am deeply committed to finding ways to protect this rainforest and its indigenous people. Thus this story, The Shaman’s Pharmacy. I would like to share with you what I have seen and experienced. Let me take you on a journey to the great Amazon rainforest and areas nearby, to the land of the shamans, who carry vast medicinal knowledge, and are willing to share their secrets. This is a journey of mind, of heart, of spirit.

For more about Chris, please visit About Chris Kilham.

See also: Amazon Rainforest Facts.