Anti aging rainforest botanicals

You may think that the wondrous plants of the Amazon rainforest remain hidden from modern science, but their medicinal and energizing properties have not gone completely unnoticed.

The rainforest’s original inhabitants, the indigenous Indians, have been using the raw ingredients found in nature to heal, energize and improve their health and well-being. It may even have prolonged life.

The Western world is largely unaware of these rainforest treasures and their scientific benefits. But you are on the threshold of finding out what such discoveries can mean to you.

It will give you an advantage over others that are eating high-fat, high-carb diets that lead to obesity and a shortened lifespan. The life-giving juices and teas of the Amazon rainforest will make clear what the indigenous people of the Amazon have always known.

Scientific background

The common factor in all the fruits, juices and teas of the Amazon is their content of antioxidant's. Antioxidants are nature’s way of defending against chemicals and pollutants that threaten healthy cells every minute of the day. It is true of all living things, plants, animals and human beings.

Your body produces some antioxidants/enzymes quite naturally, but some can only be obtained from healthy foods.

Enzymes

Naturally occurring enzymes perform billions of cell-saving operations in your body without exhausting themselves. Although your body will produce incredible amounts of antioxidant enzymes over your lifetime, it can be very slow to create new ones if your body is under siege. If your body is exposed to more pollutants than your antioxidant enzymes can destroy, your cells may be in trouble.

Certain fruits and plant-based foods contain antioxidants that your body can use over and above the body’s own antioxidant enzymes. For that reason it makes sense to consume a variety of the antioxidant rich botanicals every day. It is your body’s best defense against premature aging.

In addition to the antioxidant plants that you already know, grapes, blueberries, and green tea, here you will learn about some amazing rainforest plants poised to take the antioxidant world by storm.

There are fruits and teas that will give you energy and longer life - the ones from the rainforest. It is strange that they are not already well known in the Western world - why isn’t this already common knowledge? People in South America have used these plants for centuries, but the knowledge has been passed down from generation to generation orally - rather than in writing. This is particularly true among the people of the Amazon basin. Westerners simply have not had the opportunity to hear the stories.

Researchers who have made it a point to learn about and listen to the traditional healers have had their research priorities laid out for them.

As more and more about the wondrous fruits and plants have become known, they have set about the task of analyzing their active components and examining them in ways that is credible to modern science.

In case after case it has been established that the oral stories of indigenous Indians are correct and that the fruits and teas indeed have properties that energize and help them lead a longer and healthier life.

Let’s focus on three: açai, cupuaçu, and yearba mate. They are not yet household names in the West, the Indians of South America have been using them for centuries. Once you learn about their real qualities you’ll want a chance to take advantage of their amazing properties too.

Acai, the Amazon Super Fruit

The first time I ever tried acai (pronounced: ah-sah-yee) in 1997, the fruit was served to me as a thick drink by an Ipixuna Indian woman, when I was living on the Amazon River for a month.

Acai, Euterpe oleracea, was as deep purple as any food I had ever seen. In fact, a spill stained a favorite t-shirt of mine, forever. I loved the rich flavor of acai, and the energy it imparted, and consumed as much as I could during the course of my time on the river.

When I left Brazil that time, I lamented that I’d probably never be able to obtain acai back home.

Times have changed, and this delicious fruit is now widely available, from Whole Foods to up-market grocery stores.

A so-called “super-berry” that grows on palms trees in the Amazon, acai is a staple food throughout Amazonia, and that status owes directly to its marvelous flavor.

Acai explodes with flavor, and gets better with every mouthful. Rich in the potent purple pigments called anthocyanins, acai has a higher antioxidant activity rating than bilberries or blueberries, and is rich in beneficial dietary fibers.

A glass of blended acai fruit, with just a slight touch of energizing guarana and certified organic sugar, imparts so much energy, you’ll want to dance and yodel while climbing a mountain at the same time.

No wonder endurance cyclists and ball players have taken to this fruit. Surfers, skateboarders, X-gamers and outdoor enthusiasts speak of acai with reverence.

The berry craze is on full throttle now, and purveyors of each berry – from blueberries to blackberries, black currants and elderberries – have positioned their berry as the ultimate. All of these berries are rich in the purple antioxidant pigments called anthocyanins, and all impart both antioxidant protection to cells, and anti-inflammatory activity as well. As far as I am concerned, they are all extraordinary foods, and are valuable in any person’s diet. I just happen to favor acai most of all, because I love the flavor and the fact that the acai trade is helping to reduce deforestation in some parts of the Amazon.

Forest Preservation - Fast-forward years later, once more in the Brazilian rainforest, this time in the company of Ryan Black, founder of Sambazon Acai. We are watching several hard-working Brazilians climb tall acai palms rapidly, cut branches laden with ripe purple acai berries, and strip the berries into baskets, readying them for processing.

“Our wildharvesting system was developed in conjunction with the Forest Sustainability Council,” Ryan explains. “We’ve taught people how to wildharvest acai, and protect the forest at the same time.” Through ecologically sound agro-forestry management practices, Sambazon has established a top-notch conservation program that protects the Amazon rainforest and minimizes habitat loss. On top of that, they’ve implemented a fair wage system that provides higher than average wages to over 10,000 families in Brazil’s Amapa state. Sambazon has won praise and support from World Wildlife Federation, The Nature Conservancy and Greenpeace. As far as Ryan Black is concerned, it’s all just a reasonable and fair way to operate a business. “Might as well do it right if you’re going to do it,” he says.

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Highlights of Rivers in Amazon Rainforest

Rivers flowing through Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest appear tan from sediments and silvery from sun glint, giving them the appearance of lightning bolts slicing across the green landscape.

The Amazon rainforest is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America. This basin encompasses seven million square kilometers (1.7 billion acres), of which five and a half million square kilometers (1.4 billion acres) are covered by the rainforest.

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Rainforest Sustainability is embedded in Sambazon

From acai berries to the Sustainable Amazon Partnership (SAP)

When brothers Jeremy and Ryan Black created the company Sambazon in 2000 they hit the proverbial mother lode. Sambazon makes juices, sorbet and smoothie packs from acai, berries that grow in Brazil's Amazon forests.

Although the company does not disclose sales, in 2008 they were estimated at $25 million. Sambazon's products are "sold in virtually every health food store, juice bar and convention grocery store in the U.S.," according to its website. Its products are sold at Whole Foods and supermarket chains such as Safeway and Giant.

Sambazon says its company was founded on sustainability, a claim it can back up. It was the first company to sponsor U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic certification for acai, and its supply chain is certified as Fair Trade. It works with Wild Wildlife Foundation (WWF) Brazil and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to ensure acai is harvested sustainably. Sambazon also built a factory in Amapa, Brazil that buys acai berries from over 10,000 independent family growers, and employs about 150 people, half in Brazil.

Sambazon was named a winner of the "Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence" (A.C.E. Award) for a small-medium business in 2006. It was nominated by the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil. Then U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said Sambazon "is an outstanding example of the positive impact that a small company can make to the economy, the environment and the society of its host country."

Rice added, "Sambazon was selected for efforts to promote sustainable development in the Brasilian Rainforest, while improving the conditions of indigenous people through creative marketing of the açaí fruit."

Sambazon launched the Sustainable Amazon Partnership (SAP) as a "public and private collaboration to promote lasting sustainable management of the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest." Since launched, SAP has:

* Provided an alternative sustainable income source to logging, cattle and monoculture plantations
* Promoted sustainable development through environmental stewardship on over 1.9 million acres
* Supported women in local cooperative who make acai seed jewellery
* Established and monitored biosocial indicators to determine the impact of the acai trade
* Developed and implemented sustainability programs with local family farmers

Over one million acai seeds a day come out of processed fruit during harvest season. Sambazon uses the seeds as fuel for its Amapa factory and donates seeds to a nearby brick factory. Before Sambazon donated the seeds, the factory "would use virgin wood from the surrounding area to burn as fuel for the kilns," said factory owner Wagner Alonso Rodrigues.

Since using the donated seeds, the amount of rainforest wood burned by the factory has been reduced by almost 90 percent. "We have reduced our wood purchasing so drastically that now we save $US 250 a day burning seed instead of wood," said Rodrigues.

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The New Wellness Revolution

Ancient Acai – The Brazilian Amazon’s Super-Berry

Acai (ah-sigh-ee) is a small purple berry from the Brazilian Amazon that has been found to be one of the most nutritious and powerful foods on the planet – jam packed with antioxidants, healthy omega fats, amino acids and dietary fiber.

Ancient Acai - the purple berry with an energy punch has been enjoyed and used as a subsistence food by the natives of the Amazon region for millennia. But it is only now beginning to become known to the American consumer, looking for ways to slow the aging process and maintain vibrant health.

Amazonian acai is establishing itself as an important superfood - gaining popularity with the healthconscious crowd.

Antioxidants help the body get rid of free radicals. The body produces free radicals when it digests food, metabolizes medicine and fights disease, so they are necessary parts of the human condition, but a buildup can damage the body. Antioxidants are credited with preventing coronary artery disease, some cancers, macular degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, and some arthritis-related conditions. according to WebMD.com.

Pomegranates, blueberries -- even wine, chocolate and coffee -- contain high levels of antioxidants. The U.S. Department of Agriculture measures those levels with something called an ORAC score -- Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity.

Acai berries have nearly eight times higher ORAC scores than pomegranate, which is near the top of published charts.

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Brazil Plans a Price on Oil to Accelerate Climate Efforts

Brazil expects to see its lowest rates of illegal deforestation since 1988 by the end of this year.

Minister of Environment Izabella Teixeira said the government will reduce the annual chopping and burning of the Amazon rainforest to between 4,000 and 5,000 square kilometers. The figures will be announced in the run-up to this year's U.N. climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico, this December.

The Amazon clearing is a far cry from the 24,000 square kilometers the so-called "lungs of the Earth" lost in the beginning of this decade. But, Teixeira said, it's also not enough.

"OK, you did this, yes, we are so great," the minister said in a self-mocking flourish at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars' Brazil Institute. But, she added with seriousness, "this challenge is not the only one."

Last year, at climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, Brazil promised to reduce its carbon dioxide output 36 percent over the coming decade. Meeting that goal would bring Brazil -- now the world's seventh-largest emitter -- back to its 1994 levels. This week, Teixeira said, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will sign Brazil's sectoral strategy and investment plan to show how the country will meet that target. Also this week, Brazil will launch a long-planned climate change fund, bankrolled by a levy on oil production and exploration.

Together, these moves and others are part of a larger Brazilian strategy of assuming a new role in the U.N. climate talks: that of an emerging economic superpower intent on protecting smaller, developing countries while also proving to the United States and others that it will do its part to fight rising global emissions.

But what impact that will have at the 16th U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP16, talks, where nearly all attention will be focused on getting the United States and China to come to terms over mitigating emissions, is unclear.

An emerging player throws chips on the table

In an interview with ClimateWire after speaking to the Brazil Institute about the current Convention on Biological Diversity conference in Nagoya, Japan, Teixeira was at once dismissive and upbeat about the Cancun meeting.

"COP 16? Forget it," said Teixeira when told the interview topic. Then she recovered. Cancun, she said, is key to bringing leaders together. "It's important that you have a pragmatic approach, and that you can show the global society that we are doing something. It's important to show the world that we can establish a pragmatic basis for actions."

Teixeira maintained the need for an international treaty -- though she didn't specify when that might become a reality -- and stressed the importance of developed countries like the United States making good on commitments to give poor countries $30 billion by 2020 to cope with climate change consequences.

"Let's be current with our declaration," she said. "If we're not able to do this, why are we able to spend lots of money with wars?"

The gregarious minister, who in the course of her public talk teased a questioner about her marital status ("I hope that you can have a lot of marriages. High biodiversity.") and handed her personal e-mail to a graduate student who had written recently on Brazil, offered few other specifics on COP16. Instead, she peppered much of her talk with platitudes.

On whether the Cancun meeting is a referendum on the troubled U.N. climate process: "It's important to understand that climate change is an issue with high complexity."

On whether countries, including Brazil, trust the United States when it says it will keep its Copenhagen promise to cut carbon about 17 percent below 2005 levels, despite the absence of legislation: "It's very important that you have political leadership from President Obama."

As to whether Lula will attend COP16, the minister said she wasn't sure. But, she added, "to have political leadership, you don't necessarily need to go to the COP."

Brazil's plan to grow jobs in a 'low-carbon economy'

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Spectacular species found in Amazon Rainforest

Spectacular species previously unknown to the outside world are being discovered in the Amazon rainforest at a rate of one every three days, environment group WWF said in a report published on Tuesday.

An anaconda as long as a limousine, a giant catfish that eats monkeys, a blue fanged spider and poisoned dart frogs are among the 1,220 animals and plants to have been newly found from 1999 to 2009, according to the report.

The report was released on the sidelines of a United Nations summit in Japan that is being held to try to save the world's fast diminishing biodiversity, and the WWF said it highlighted why protecting the Amazon was so vital.
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"This report clearly shows the incredible, amazing diversity of life in the Amazon," Francisco Ruiz, head of WWF's Living Amazon Initiative, told reporters at the launch.

"(But) this incredible region is under pressure because of the human presence. The landscape is being very quickly transformed."

Logging and clearing for agriculture such as cattle farming and palm oil plantations have led to 17 per cent of the Amazon -- an area twice the size of Spain -- being destroyed over the past 50 years, according to the WWF.

The WWF compiled the findings reported by scientists over the 10-year period to highlight how much valuable biodiversity humans may be losing without even knowing as the Amazon is being cleared.

"It serves as a reminder of how much we still have to learn about this unique region, and what we could lose if we don't change the way we think about development," Ruiz said.

One of the most amazing discoveries was a four-metre anaconda in the flood plains of Bolivia's Pando province in 2002.

It was the first new anaconda species identified since 1936, and becomes only the fourth known type of that reptile, according to the WWF.

There were a total of 55 reptile species discovered, with others including two members of Elapidae -- the most venomous snake family in the world that includes cobras and taipans.

A kaleidoscope of different coloured frogs were also found, including 24 of the famed poison dart variety and one that was translucent.

Among the 257 types of fish discovered in the rivers and lakes of the Amazon over was a "goliath" catfish.

One of them found in Venezuela measured nearly 1.5 metres long and weighed 32kg.

At least 500 spiders were also discovered, including one that was completely brown except for a pair of almost fluorescent blue fangs.

Thirty-nine new mammals were also found, including a pink river dolphin, seven types of monkeys and two porcupines.

Among the 637 new plant species discovered were sunflowers, ivy, lilies, a variety of pineapple and a custard apple.

The Amazon is home to at least 40,000 plant species, and the WWF described the scale of diversity in some areas as "mind boggling".

It said 1,000 plant species were documented in one hectare of lowland rainforest in Ecuador, while 3,000 were found in a 24-hectare region of the Colombian section of the Amazon.

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