Ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin founded the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT)
to help the tribes of Brazil mark and defend their territories through the use of Google Maps! ACT has been successful in empowering several Brazilian tribes.

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Jeremy Narby, a Swiss ethnobotanist and anthropologist, studied the connection between ayahuasca and DNA. He wrote Intelligence in Nature and The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge. Narby sponsored an expedition to the Amazon rainforest for biologists to investigate how shamen use ayahuasca to gain profound botanical and medical knowledge.

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Robert Tindall is the author of The Jaguar that Roams the Mind: An Amazonian Plant Spirit Odyssey and The Shamanic Odyssey: Homer, Tolkien, and the Visionary Experience.

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These and other pioneers are helping to reconcile the West with the indigenous cultures of the Amazon and North America.