American Journal of Ethnomedicine

Pharmacognosy and the Peace Process in Colombia

6^th Edition of International Conference on Pharmacognosy and Medicinal Plants
April 16-17, 2018 Amsterdam, Netherlands

Pedro Medina

Yo creo en Colombia, Colombia

ScientificTracks Abstracts: Am J Ethnomed

DOI: 10.21767/2348-9502-C1-005

Abstract

Statement of the Problem: In 1999 Colombia, the world´s most biodiverse country per square meter and home of 2,400 plants with medical properties, woke up with a picture in the front page of all newspapers. This picture shattered the dream of all Colombians that we were going to finish the year, the century, the millennium in peace. The picture was f the empty seat – when the headof the FARC, the oldest guerrilla group in the world, stood up President Pastrana in the middle of the peace talks. Two weeks later, the picture in the papers was of the earthquake in the coffee zone. The rest of that year was shattered dreams and earthquakes for Colombia. That year we had 80% of the kidnappings in the world. 55% of the terrorist acts in the world happened in Colombia that year. 400,000 Colombians, 1% of the population, left the country. There was a graffiti on the way to the airport which read - “will the last one to leave, please turn off the lights”. That year, our economy plummeted. For the first time in written economic history, our GNP decreased - 4.3%. 1,200 companies went bust and Colombia´s best humorist, Jaime Garzón, was shot to death. While all this was happening, I was running McDonald´s and teaching a business strategy class. I asked my 39 students - “which of you sees yourself in Colombia in 5 years?” Only 12 raised their hands. Unable to sell Colombia to my students, I was perplexed.I then understood that the stories of success which we were told were almost always, foreign. And the local stories were incredibly vivid and terrifying. I realized we lacked local positive models, reasons to be proud, examples, sources of inspiration. One of them is pharmacopsy and how we leverage our biodiversity.

Biography

Pedro Medina is a pioneer in Colombia and Latin America in Asset Based Development, specializing in how to leverage the biodiversity in a sustainable way transforming the huge botanical treasure in medicine, the systems, insights, best practices of nature into solutions for mankind – biomimicry, and the fauna into engaged tourism – bird watching. He leads an NGO called Yo Creo en Colombia and for the past 18 years has created contents which lead to a new discourse in his country. He is part of the board of advisors of Colciencias, the Colombian National Science Institution.

E-mail: pmedina@yocreoencolombia.com