With rising pandemics of mosquito-borne viruses like zika, malaria, dengue, and continuing searches for cures for Ebola, cancer, HIV/AIDS, and infectious diseases (like COVID-19), plants (in addition to animals) provide insight, inspiration, and often ingredients for possible cures. The World Intellectual Property Organization and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization have dedicated special programs for plant medicine, traditional knowledge (folklore) and genetic resources (biological specimens of plants). The high value placed on traditional knowledge, particularly from indigenous communities, has led to vandalism and biopiracy of plants (and animals) across national borders. There also deeper histories of plant knowledge and dispossession woven into the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the cotton and tobacco industry in the US South, as well as rubber from the Amazon rainforest that become crucial to world wars.
Gen&WS 533: Gender, Race & Botany
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