This week, I felt that several of these ideas of mine had come together when I heard about the Deadly Award for Science (sponsored by CSIRO) awarded to Mbabaram traditional landowner, Garry Turpin. Although this is Deadlys' 19th year, this is the first science award. (www.deadlys.com.au)
The Deadly Awards
The "Deadlys" are a series of awards for indigenous people, formerly for prominence in music, the arts, sport, leadership, journalism and community activities (including health and education), presented at a gala night at the Sydney Opera House.
Part of their mission statement reads: "The Deadlys® recognise the contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to our community and to Australian society and showcase outstanding achievement and excellence." (www.deadlys.com.au)
What is 'ethnobotany'?
From Ezekiel 47 verse 12: "....it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine ."
This refers to the knowledge the peoples of Biblical times had about the uses of the plants they grew or found wild.
But even before the Bible was written down, the ancient peoples (the Genesis period) have used the plants in their area for food, medicine, clothing, shelter and all the tools they needed. Our own modern medicine arose from the studies of 'herbalists' whose knowledge accumulated over many generations, and some of the most common and effective medications today are based on plant products – for example, aspirin and the heart drug digitoxin - as well as tea-tree oil and eucalyptus oil which have antiseptic and anticongestent properties.
Any of our Western drugs prescribed for us by our doctors, or available in our pharmacies, are either extracted and purified or manufactured according to strict procedures and guidelines. The recommended doses of the pure compounds have been tested for efficacy and side effects.
However, as in our past societies, less developed or traditional societies today still use medications derived directly from the plants. These traditions are fading as Western culture has spread throughout the world.
Ethnobotanists seek to study those people who still use plants in the ways their forebears did, before all the knowledge is lost, and to document this culture and also to scientifically study the plants and their use to see which ones are effective, and which may lead to new modern medicines. (en.wikipedia.org)
Two examples of recent effective, new drugs from traditional remedies are 'tamoxifen' for breast cancer and 'artemsinin' for malaria. The latter is now usually only used as an adjunct with older treatments due to increased resistance by the malarial parasite. Even 'natural' remedies are not magic, but can have the same drawbacks as synthetic medicines.
History of ethnobotany in Australia
In some ways, we are not proud that the first English settlers largely ignored the local Aboriginal culture. But in other ways we can take pride in the fact that many Europeans were, in fact, interested in the uses that could be made of the local flora.
As a historian, I can imagine that the original settlers.(most of whom didn't want to be here anyway) could only know what was familiar from England. Because the local aborigines did not have settlements, the land was declared 'terra nullius' – 'land belonging to no-one', so there was very little communication attempted about the use of plants by the local peoples.
Compounding this attitude, many diseases that the Aborigines were not immune to decimated the populations in the south-east as Europeans settled the area (measles, influenza and smallpox). Thus much of the knowledge about the use of plants in NSW and Victoria has been lost forever.
(www.aboriginalartonline.com, www.anthropologysocietysa.com)
However, in more remote areas, where local people are still connected to their 'country', this knowledge is still passed on down the generations. Many studies of the chemical composition of interesting Australian plants have been done over the years, by CSIRO and various Australian universities, usually in consultation with Aboriginal elders.
This chemical information has been documented and is accessible when needed by ethnobotanists who are looking in more detail at the plants and their environment. Histories of these 'phytochemical' studies have been written, and I found references to two books written respectively in 1959 and 1992 *trove.nla.gov.au and www.publish.csiro.au
There have also been several prominent people who have disseminated knowledge of bush foods and bush medicines, including Vic Cherikoff, members of the Australian Naitve Plants Societies, the Australian National Botanic Gardens (ACT) and all the State Botanic Gardens (particularly Mt Annan, NSW and Kings Park, WA which specialise in Australian plants). Some references can be found at: en.wikipedia.org; asgap.org.au; www.anbg.gov.au
Ongoing scientific research in several Universities (eg Macquarie University (NSW), Griffith University (Qld), University of South Australia (SA), and others) involves Aboriginal elders in a more consistent way. There is much more awareness now, than in the past, of sharing the results of these studies, and any financial benefits that might be attained in the future, with the traditional owners of that knowledge.
Gerry Turpin at James Cook University, North Qld is himself an Aboriginal gentleman who can discuss the heritage of his own country with the elders in a way that is more personal, and can complement the research of others.
Gerry Turpin – a role model as scientist and aboriginal leader
Gerry Turpin is Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at James Cook University's Australian Tropical Herbarium. In a recent interview on ABC Radio National, he explained how he worked his way from a farm labourer to his current position developing an Indigenous Ethnobotanical Centre. This involved putting himself through a four-year science degree as a mature-aged student.
He said he is hoping others that this Deadly award will help others know about the relevance of science as a career; and help them realise that they need to stay at school and study at University to attain these skills.
He said "Science is not well advertised to young indigenous people. This award certainly attracted a lot of interest. People are asking 'what is ethnobotany?' because that is a whitefella word".
Although Gerry Turpin is conscious of his responsibilities as an aboriginal leader, he humbly states that he is still learning from the elders of his culture whose knowledge is 'amazing'. He feels there is a two-way sharing of knowledge now that he has a foot in both worlds, and this can lead to better land management on the one hand (foot?) as well as better scientific analysis of useful plants on the other.
(www.abc.net.au)
I congratulate him on this award, and applaud CSIRO for making it possible.
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at
www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.html