Earth Under Threat: People and Plants of the Amazon Rainforest

Professor Sir Ghillean Prance is a former director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and a former senior vice president of the New York Botanical Garden. He is currently scientific director of the Eden Project in Cornwall, England.

A plant taxonomist, he has spent more than eight years botanically exploring Amazonian Brazil. The recipient of fourteen honorary degrees, he has written thirteen books, edited nearly a dozen more, and published over 300 papers on plant systematics, plant ecology, ethnobotany and conservation.

Sir Ghillean Prance will lecture on ethical questions arising from ethnobotanical work amongst four tribes of Amazonian Indians and more recent work in Samoa. Arrow poisons, narcotics and fish poisons will be addressed, along with the questions raised about how far missionary work should influence an indigenous culture. Some contrast between working in the Christian environment of Samoa where local culture has remained and with Brazilian Indians where missionary work usually leads to acculturation will be discussed. He will argue that any missionary work must endeavour to help converts to maintain their strong environmental ethics rather than marginalize them.

Hosted by the UBC Graduate and Faculty Christian Forum.

Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 3:01 PM on November 7, 2003