Medicinal plants workshop at Iracambi with the community, pharmaceutical students, Iracambi volunteers, researchers and staff.

The medicinal plants workshop was a joint collaboration between Iracambi staff/researchers/volunteers, three agro forestry students from Vicosa, community members from Graminha and other areas around Iracambi and pharmaceutical students from Muriae studying at a faculty called FAMINAS. This was the first time to get all these groups together and these workshops will be continuing periodically over the next years.

From left to right we have volunteers and staff Alexandre, Toni, Gustavo and Marcelo. Alexandre is studying classical music at a university near Sao Paulo and has been here volunteering for about two months. Toni is from Catalonia and has been here for since August running our nursery, coordinating tree planting with help of staff/volunteers and cooking some great meals. Gustavo is our volunteer coordinator and in addition to this working on starting and promoting ecotourism in the area. He comes from the south of Minas Gerais (state where Iracambi is located) and doing this as part of a year long paid internship. Marcelo is our medicinal plants/forestry expert and has been with Iracambi for two years working on improving Iracambi’s work with/in the community and much more. Out of the 50 plus volunteers/researchers, staff, community members and students from the two institutions we were broken into two groups each with two note takers/recorders, a photographer, team leader, specialists on the plants/trees from which collected specimens and observers. Here were some of the members of the group I was involved in observing one of the trees from which we cut bark. Alexandre and Sr. Joaquim discussing where to cut a bark sample from this tree. Sr. Joaquim is one of the community members that participated and he did most of the work in our group such as cutting bark samples to later be tested by the FAMINAS students. One of the great things of joint efforts like these is that the community members see how outsiders such as volunteers from overseas and students from nearby educational institutions find value in the knowledge possessed by the rural communities and the plants/trees that the know about. It boosts self worth and gives incentives to the locals to protect the forests and pass down their knowledge of the forests to future generations. Sr. Joaquim carefully cutting the bark to be removed and later tested for its medicinal properties. Medicinal plants/trees can heal people, provide incomes through the sell of the medicines and help with ecotourism by bringing in interested researchers and tourists who can pay to participate in the selection, collection, preparation, etc. of these plants and trees. At each tree/plant from which we collected specimens we took various measurements such as height, width, girth, etc.
One of the FAMINAS students along with Sr. Joaquim and Alexandre discussing the tree before cutting the bark. This FAMINAS student was boosted up by Alexandre to take some leaves from the tree. After getting to specimens from the lower part he had to kill multiple ants which were biting him. Alexandre climbed a nearby tree to take a leaf from the top of our specimen to compare this leaf with the lower ones already collected.
Alexandre will soon be leaving us at Iracambi which is sad as he is a very nice, modest, helpful, funny and selfless person. We will miss his humor, bread, smile and much more.

After collecting the specimens and knocking the remaining ants from them we left the nursery to return to the laboratory.

I snapped this pic on the way out of the nursery to show you our compost which is part of our eco friendly system to get rid of our waste/leftovers. With between a dozen and two dozen persons here at any given time we produce a great deal of waste and when used this compost is used by Toni as food/fertilizer for his seedlings/saplings.
Guides to Brazilian trees/plants were available for consultation in the laboratory so that any remaining questions could be answered.
Members of another group went to work taking the leaves off of the branches so that they could be weighed, packaged, labeled and transported back to Muriae for the FAMINAS students to study further.
Yet another group weighing specimens they collected. Once back in Muriae the then dry weight will be taken to compare it to the weight upon initial collection.

Alexandre weighing one of the branches that he took from the ant infested tree.

Packing of leaves in paper to be transported, pressed and dried back in Muriae and then further studied.
A packed and prepared specimen ready to be taken.
The “crew” enjoying some coffee, juice and snacks at our kitchen after a hard afternoon’s work.
Fun and games a.k.a. an icebreaker after the work was done. An anticlimactic time to do this if you ask me once everyone had gotten to know each other but a way to celebrate the communal effort As I often love doing I was able to avoid participating in this by being the photographer as I find it much more fun to be behind the camera than in front.