For centuries, medicinal plants used by traditional healers have been at the heart of health care in Tanzania. Today, this is largely because most of the population cannot afford the high price of imported drugs. Sadly, indigenous medical knowledge and the forests where many medicinal plants are found are disappearing at an alarming rate.

Grace Gobbo, a Tanzanian ethnobotanist, is part of the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) team working on the Gombe-Masito-Ugalla Ecosystem Program. Her efforts focus on reinvigorating the herbal medicine traditions in East Africa in order to reverse these trends.

Grace studies holistic, natural approaches to cure and relief that she believes are essential to the connection between individuals and their environment. She also educates Tanzanians about the value of these practices, particularly as they relate to sustainable agriculture."People used to live in harmony with the environment," says Grace. "When a person harvested a plant for medicine, s/he would talk to the spirit of the plant. There was a communication between people and nature."

Grace has interviewed more than 80 traditional healers in the town of Kigoma in western Tanzania. The healers have shared information on using plants to treat ailments such as skin and chest infections, stomach ulcers, diabetes, heart disease, mental illness, and even cancer. Grace has recorded this information, with notes and photographs of the plants and their uses, into a computer database.

Africa, National geographic, Medicine, Conservation, Biology