[00:00:13] Intro: Welcome to Brainforest Café with Dennis McKenna.

[00:00:21] Dennis McKenna: Michael Coe is an ethnobiologist and applied ecologist with a PhD in evolution, ecology and conservation biology.

As an assistant professor at Tarleton State University, his teaching and research focuses on the relationship between humans, ecosystems and traditional knowledge systems.

Passionate about biodiversity and the sustainable management of natural resources, Michael brings a dynamic interdisciplinary perspective, helping to integrate contemporary ethnobiology and ecology with traditional ecological practices to inform sustainable use strategies, conservation priorities and global medicine security.

Michael is the principal investigator for the colab, where they’re conducting hypothesis driven research in ethnobiology and harvest impact assessments on medicinal plants that serve as a primary source of health care for over 80% of the world’s population.

Michael is also the Director for Research and education for the Pachinishi Project, a Shipibo-Konibo led effort in the Peruvian Amazon basin, seeking to restore 20 hectares of degraded land in agroforestry settings with a primary goal to inform sustainable ayahuasca production in the area as locally sourced, sustainably grown medicine. Michael, welcome once again to the Brainforest Café podcast.

[00:02:00] Michael Coe: Thank you very much, Dennis. It’s an honor and a privilege once again to be here.

[00:02:05] Dennis McKenna: I’m always happy to talk to you because you are passionate about this work and as we all are, but you are also one of the more articulate voices about all the multiple issues that this kind of activity generates is involved with, and it’s never getting enough attention.

So we’re happy to have you back and have you tell your story and hopefully that will attract attention that may translate into support for your work because it’s making a difference.

[00:02:45] Michael Coe: I mean, thank you, sir.

[00:02:47] Dennis McKenna: It is right where it needs to be.

[00:02:49] Michael Coe: Thank you.

[00:02:51] Dennis McKenna: Bring me up to date. Last we talked, I believe you were doing a postdoc in France.

[00:02:56] Michael Coe: Yeah, correct. And I was at the French National Institute for Research and Development and the Mediterranean Institute for Biodiversity and Ecology in Marseille, France. And, you know, it was a wonderful opportunity to learn, you know, what was happening for ethnobiology in Europe.

[00:03:14] Dennis McKenna: And.

[00:03:14] Michael Coe: And, you know, since then I took a faculty position in the Department of Biological Sciences at Tarleton State University in Texas. And it’s just been an incredible experience, you know, being a professor now, you know, and inspiring the minds of young people thinking about sustainability sciences and really how we approach our relationships with nature.

And this is something that I’ve been very.

[00:03:44] Michael Coe: Adamant about highlighting in my courses, is inspiring young minds to think critically about our successful engagement with nature in such a way that we can reevaluate our reliance on nature and ultimately how we are utilizing the natural resources on which we all depend on. So I’ve been recently focused on teaching courses in sustainability sciences, most recently a biological and ecological restoration course where we’ve looked at some of the global challenges, on the biodiversity crisis that we’re facing, and a lot of the natural resources that are, you know, are essential to all human societies.

And now, you know, I’ve started developing, you know, a research program for my, where I’m focusing on answering larger questions in ethnobiology.

The wonderful thing about the discipline is for most of the 19th century, even into the earliest 20th century, we’ve been primarily focused on identifying useful species and documenting their uses. And a lot of this has been under the framework of utilitarian ethnobotany, which, which is a subdiscipline of ethnobiology that really had been brought into focus by Schultes and many other explorers that documented the use of plants with practical implications for drug discovery. And thankfully, through all of this work and great repositories of knowledge that we have through the journals and science that have published a lot of this work and even some of the global data sets that we now have access to, because we’ve become, know, so integrated, you know, with, with technology and so on and so forth, we’re now able to use, you know, a lot of data sets around the world to start answering larger questions.

So here’s something that I ponder. You know, many of us rely on the natural world for survival, you know, for everything in which we depend, you know, and one of the major challenges I think we face globally is global medicine security.

And in the sense that nowadays, you know, we’ve looked at this and over 80% of the world’s population relies on medicinal plants as a primary source of healthcare.

And this is evident across societies around the world.

And over 30,000 species have been identified for medicinal use out of the 350,000 species classified by botanists. And as an industry as a whole, due to international trade, global medicines coming from natural remedies, Natural Plants generates about a hundred over $100 billion in global revenue. So this is a huge industry, but also a very important legacy of knowledge that has been stewarded by the cultures around the world that retain, you know, the knowledge and connection to nature. And one of the biggest questions is, how do human societies select certain species for medicinal use?

And this is something that’s very important to understand because, you know, when we look at nature, we see that certain plant families have a greater proportion of species that produce chemical compounds than others. You know, certain plant families, like the Fabiaceae family or even the Lamiaceae, you know, they tend to have more medicinal plant species than maybe other plant families. And, and this is due to the fact that many of these species inherit plant defense characteristics that allow them to be greater used and useful for medicine because they often produce secondary compounds that are playing a role in defense. But humans utilize these for medicine. And so globally you have the distribution of medicinal use across certain plant families. So there’s some kind of evolutionary component to the distribution of medicinal plants that are, you know, among closely related species. And when we tie this in to try to understand how human societies select plants for medicinal use, we begin to see that widespread throughout, you know, mo many of the cultures of the world, that human societies purposely and intently select certain species over others for medicinal use. There’s this preferential and selection of plants that’s in a non random way.

And this ties into one of the major theories in ethnobiology, which is the theory of non random plant selection. And that human societies are predicted to select certain species purposely in a way that they utilize traditional knowledge to identify species as medicine. And this is in contrast to some of the major old ways of thinking or even misconceptions that human societies would select plants and a random way via trial and error. But we know this is not the case, right? We know traditional societies have extensive knowledge of their environment and this has been passed down over millennia and is extremely valuable.

So this is one of the global questions we want to understand through my lab is globally, you know, how do we understand this non random selection of medicinal plants? And what are the global implications?

[00:09:25] Dennis McKenna: Much of your earlier research, your doctoral research and afterwards was focused on ayahuasca as one of those cultural keystone species that is very important in the ecosystem of the Amazon. As kind of a prime example of this non random selection of plants.

[00:09:49] Dennis McKenna: In the sort of uneducated way people have said ayahuasca. How have they figured out to combine ayahuasca with this other plant to result in an active psychedelic? But if you prepare, if you take both plants separately, not much happens. So what are some of the criteria that indigenous people would use to guide this plant selection? You say it’s non random selection.

What goes into those perceptions of those selections? Can you.

[00:10:25] Michael Coe: Yeah, this is what’s absolutely fascinating in many ways, because as you know, and as we know, when we talk to local people like the medicals, the maestros, the people that are working with the Plants, you know, specifically when we think about ayahuasca in South America, you know, many of the practitioners say, well, the plants speak to us. They told us that, you know, they are what is bringing this healing and that we need to combine them to make this medicine.

[00:10:52] Dennis McKenna: Now.

[00:10:52] Michael Coe: Okay, this makes sense from an emic perspective when we think about looking at it from the lens of the culture. I mean, they perceive plants as having spirit and knowledge and wisdom which they impart upon the people that use them. Right. And from an external perspective, we can see, okay, well, what are some of the qualities that these plants may have? But whether they’re organolectic properties, for example, they may have the volatile organic compounds, you know, that have certain aromatic scents. We see this with certain plants that have, for example, Lamiaceae family, the mints, the oreganoes, the other.

[00:11:35] Michael Coe: Aromatic plants that have these volatile organic compounds. Then there are other thoughts of, okay, well, is there some kind of doctrine of signature? Do these plants have some kind of morphological feature that indicates its effectiveness as medicine? And I think a lot of this is, you know, it really depends on the cultures in which we. We view and how we study them and how they play a part in the selection process.

But we know that this occurs globally, and we have an entire, you know, global data set due to, you know, vast numbers of researchers over time, you know, collecting information on plants that are selected for medicine, you know, even the parts that are selected as well, you know, and their local taxonomy and so on and so forth. And the question then becomes, well, you know, from even an evolutionary psychologist perspective, how did the first humans figure this out? How did they figure out that this particular plant has some medicinal properties and taking it in a certain way, you know, is the other component of it? Because we know, as Paracelsus said, the difference between a medicine and a poison is dosage. So actually figuring out the correct dosage for these plants in such a way that brings out a therapeutic treatment versus, you know, some over, you know, over toxification from chemical compounds. So this is some of the greatest mysteries that we are still aiming to uncover.

[00:13:02] Dennis McKenna: If, if you compare these selection criteria that exist in indigenous cultures, if you compare them on a global scale, because every culture has this. They have these criteria for selection and like you say, aromaticity, organoleptic properties with alkaloidal plants. Alkaloidal plants tend to be bitter.

[00:13:28] Michael Coe: Exactly.

[00:13:29] Dennis McKenna: But are there commonalities in between different cultures in terms of the selection?

[00:13:37] Michael Coe: I believe so.

[00:13:39] Dennis McKenna: I guess my question is, are indigenous cultures viewing plants through a different lens that is somehow more valid.

[00:13:52] Dennis McKenna: Than our western reductionist view of it. I mean, we’re so preoccupied with the chemistry, which is important and always with an eye to drug discovery and that sort of thing. We miss a lot of the sort of holistic context in which the discovery of these plants takes place.

[00:14:13] Michael Coe: Absolutely.

[00:14:15] Dennis McKenna: How, I guess common is it, how common are these practices between different cultures even though they may be globally separated and ecologically separated? Or does this question even make sense?

[00:14:30] Michael Coe: It absolutely does. I mean, for one, I think there’s this evolutionary component among plants that are closely related because they have those defense characteristics. So that on the one hand is something that we have to consider and on the other hand is the, is this co evolutionary, you know, relationship between the plants and the people themselves. And I, and I, I anticipate or I predict that there is some commonality across cultures globally.

And we’re aiming to uncover this at least to demonstrate that globally, you know, many plant families and plant species are selected in a non random way.

[00:15:08] Dennis McKenna: Right.

[00:15:09] Michael Coe: And another component to this that will help us understand this even greater is when we look at, you know, when we scale down even from the plant, we know that it’s not just that human societies are selecting plants in a non random way, but they’re targeting specific organs for medicinal use. Right.

So for, to produce a different treatment or a specific treatment, it may that be that, you know, someone’s harvesting the bark of a certain plant or you know, the leaves or the roots, you know, so there’s other specific organs that are harvested intentionally and purposely as well. And this brings us to another kind of domain of this major theory looking at the non random organ selection because it’s, it’s likely and a major prediction is that human societies are purposely selecting organs in a non random way as well to produce a given treatment. And this, this makes sense because it’s not that we’re just harvesting an entire plant to produce medicine in most cases, right? In some cases, you know, yes. But often we find that, you know, we’re targeting specific organs and that makes a difference as well.

And so there’s another, you know, you know, if we look at this from an ecological perspective, we can also examine the fitness related cost of harvesting specific organs. So there’s this idea of the optimal defense theory which is borrowed from chemical ecology. And the idea is that plants will often invest, you know, greater defenses, especially in secondary chemistry, in plant organs that are most vital to plant fitness.

So what this means is that, you know, for example, if, if, if a given plant’s you know, leaves are more essential to its fitness or bark or roots, then they would invest greater chemical defenses in those specific organs. And this all depends on the life history of the species. So maybe for trees, for example, you know, there may be a bit greater contribution to fitness for, you know, bark harvest or, you know, or root harvest, for example, and some of those fitness related costs may be great. So the trees may concentrate greater defense in those organs to ensure that they persist. You know, and this is something that, you know, we know from an ecological perspective tends to hold true. But when we apply this to an ethnobiological context, then we can think, okay, human societies would most likely select these organs that are greater defended and richer in secondary chemistry for medicinal use.

And at the same time those same organs would have fitness related cost to those specific life forms. Whether if it’s a tree, an herb, a shrub, a liana, for example. And this is something to consider as well. So we’re looking at non random plant, non random organ selection and then this idea of the optimal defense theory and understanding how these preferential organs that are selected for medicinal use drive fitness related cost.

And this is an important consideration as well.

[00:18:22] Dennis McKenna: Man, there’s so much to unpack here, Michael. I mean, it’s just incredible. But you know, what occurs to me as you’re talking is that we have, in our science based approach to drug discovery from natural products.

[00:18:38] Dennis McKenna: It’S all based on screening.

I mean, you collect, you don’t pay much attention to the plant part.

Most traditional knowledge is acknowledged but dismissed or its value is not recognized. And it seems to me that in the conventional scientific approach to drug discovery, we’ve outsourced the human dimension. I mean, the people discover the virtues, the properties of plants through this human interaction.

We take plants, we make extracts of them, and we shove them through our receptor screening programs and so on.

So we’ve effectively outsourced or eliminated that human dimension. And we rely on the outputs of our spectrometers and our receptor screening, high throughput screening technologies. And all this were missing something important.

[00:19:40] Michael Coe: Absolutely.

[00:19:41] Dennis McKenna: Because if you compare the degree of.

[00:19:47] Dennis McKenna: The number of plants that have a documented ethnobotanical use that ultimately result in medicines that can be developed is far greater than just random screening. Absolutely, we’ve completely forgotten that. Or at least you’re effectively trying to reintroduce that perspective and the track record is there.

Nobody has to be convinced that this is a better approach.

[00:20:16] Dennis McKenna: Except that the pharmaceutical companies has invested a great deal of capital and credibility. And the idea of Mass screening will hopefully come up with a molecule that might be useful someday.

[00:20:30] Michael Coe: And I think we can do it.

[00:20:32] Michael Coe: In a more focused way. For example, implications of looking at these major predictions. We can identify certain plant lineages that are more likely to be selected for medicinal use and within them, patterns of organ selection that drive preferential use for medicine. And then at the same time we can start to examine some of the fitness related costs of, of harvesting those organs. And this all has practical applications for sustainability sciences.

Identifying conservation priorities. When we think about the threats to the global biodiversity that threaten the ecosystems that support these major resources to human societies around the world, I think there’s a great argument in that our global medicine security is incredibly valuable. When we think about 80% of the entire world relying on this, this is a perfect argument to support the idea that, you know, actually conserving the ecosystems that we’re destroying due to deforestation and many of the other threats that threaten them. You know, we can actually invest in our, in our health and our security globally by, by, by ensuring that these populations and these medicines persist for the long term.

And integrating this local knowledge is incredibly important as well, because the local knowledge holders are the stewards of knowledge that, you know, that ultimately retain the capacity to engage with these species in a respectful way and ultimately to manage them. You know, we know that, you know, out of most of the studies that we’ve looked at assessing the effects of harvest on important species that are used for medicine, over 75% of the studies to date have, have been shown that harvest actually can be done sustainably, especially when it’s guided by local knowledge. And the challenge then comes when over harvest is driven by economic interest and local harvesters will make the decision to harvest beyond sustainable levels or there’s other impacts to these ecosystems that are threatening the survival of the, you know, important populations of plants that are driving the decline of these, of these species.

And to bring it back to your point, you know, when we identify these plant lineages that are most likely great candidates, you know, for, for medicinal use and targeting certain organs, there is a component for ethically driven medicine discovery in such a way that the benefits to these discoveries go back to increasing the livelihoods of the communities whose knowledge is responsible for these discoveries in a way in which these communities themselves actually choose.

And this is something that has been done. We’ve seen this with Paul Cox, student of Richard Evan Schultes his work America Samoa and the botanical discovery of prostratan that came from the bark of a culturally important tree. And he negotiated rights with pharmaceutical companies at least for 100 years, maybe even to perpetuity. I would have to go back and reread the, the exact documents, but he did an incredible work and helping to ensure that these local communities that he worked with were taken care of and got percentages of the gain that came from this discovery. And I think that’s a wonderful example.

[00:23:59] Dennis McKenna: This is the exception though.

[00:24:01] Michael Coe: Absolutely.

[00:24:03] Dennis McKenna: People like Paul Cox and yourself that are mindful of these ethical issues and equity issues, I would say yes, in these discoveries, that’s not. The pharmaceutical industry is not interested in hearing about that. They want to own everything because they intend to patent it. So you know, and we know that, you know, there’s at least 500 years of biopiracy that attest to this. So we need a different model and. Absolutely, you’re trying to develop a different model. I wanted to ask you about your Pachanishi project because that seems to be a test.

[00:24:45] Dennis McKenna: Environment, a test case where you’re putting some of these concepts into practice and you want to, it’s with a Shipibo community, Shapibo Konibo community.

Can you tell us a bit about the Pachanishi project and what’s going on there? Because that’s the field aspect of the work that you’re doing right now, correct?

[00:25:07] Michael Coe: Absolutely. So we, I’m working with the Shipibo led nonprofit known as Pachinishi. But we also have our project with the, with the same name.

And this is, you know, you know, largely driven by collaborations that I’ve been working with for over, well over a decade now. You know, thankfully, because of yourself and many other mentors, you know, Eduardo and others, you know, that have inspired me along the way. I now have a history of working with, you know, community and we’ve developed a relationship and right now the focus is primarily looking at how can we engage in the co creation of knowledge that’ll help and inform and guide sustainable use and management of many of the natural resources in which the Shipibo rely on. And for us right now, one of our main focuses, Ayahuasca. And we know that among the Shipibo there are four varieties of the lianas that they actually use to prepare the medicine. And presumably, you know, as we know botanically, we’ve assumed that all these are one species, Banisteriapsis capii. And so one of the things that we’re looking at is how, you know, do these varieties, these local taxonomic varieties, how do they, you know, differ in terms of their, you know, ecology and their responses to harvest and even environmental variability over time. And so what we’ve done, you know, working in collaboration with our partners around the city of Pucallpa, we have, you know, several hectare plots established and one in which that is, you know, across different environmental gradients. So we have a plot that experiences periodic drought and another one that experiences periodic flooding. And we’ve already planted over 500 host trees that support the LIANAs and over 250 consisting of the four different varieties that we’ve planted. And our goal is to understand, you know, over time, you know, several important factors as one, the ecology of these different varieties, looking at, you know, even their taxonomy, seeing if there’s differences in taxonomy, that we can actually definitively identify them as unique taxa or if they are all, you know, presumably one species.

I’m working on establishing a collaborative effort with international team of scientists where we want to look at the taxonomy, the genomics as well, and try to tease apart what we can understand by, about these local varieties from a scientific perspective. And that’s a major goal there. From there. And then the other part of it is that how can we facilitate fast and growing systems for these lianas to be able to flourish and also understand their host tree specificity? One of the things that we’ve learned about over time is that Ayahuasca will tend to prefer certain host trees over others.

And this can vary depending on light availability, resource availability, and tree community composition. So we want to kind of understand, do all these four varieties prefer the same or similar tree species to support them as they go to the heavens? You know, what are their growth rates like, you know, with certain combination of host trees and with the ecosystems in which they’re, they’re going, and how does this variability and, and water availability, light availability, and so on and so forth affect the population dynamics of these, of these, of these varieties? And then, of course, understanding how harvest affects them as well. You know, one of the, you know, interesting dynamics I’ve learned, you know, through our first study on the demography of the Ayahuasca lianas in more, you know, wild and naturalized populations is that often in response to harvest there’s a, there’s a trade off, a reproductive strategy, trade off in favor of clonal reproduction when the lianas are harvest. So often harvest doesn’t necessarily kill the liana, depending on, you know, how much is taken, how the ecological conditions are, they tend to actually produce a lot of shoots that come up following harvest. Now, these are genetically identical, you know, to the, the host you know, the mother liana. And one of the things that we find is that, okay, over time, is it that there’s some kind of reproductive strategy trade off exhibited in the population? Presumably these lianas are harvested at different, you know, different size classes depending on the need to produce the medicine. But overall, what is the cost of this reproductive strategy trade off? Is there a possibility for reduced genetic diversity over time if we have continuous production of these new ramets, you know, following harvest or host tree falls, and less production of the Samaras, Right, for sexual reproduction? And so this is something to consider over time. You know, what are some of the biological consequences of harvest? Is there a potential reduced genetic diversity and how may that affect the overall population dynamics and even fitness of the populations over time? Because if we have less genetic diversity, that can create some challenges along the way as well.

[00:30:29] Dennis McKenna: Could you elaborate a little bit on this concept of fitness? You’ve, you’ve mentioned this several times. What exactly do you mean here? The fitness of the plant for its.

[00:30:41] Michael Coe: Environment or fitness is the ability to survive and reproduce and pass your alleles on to the next generation.

[00:30:48] Dennis McKenna: Right, I see.

[00:30:49] Michael Coe: Right, yeah. And so when we think about the fitness of the population, it’s the ability of the population to persist under, know, changing environmental conditions, you know, because with reduced genetic diversity, maybe it has certain allele combinations that make it less, you know, or more susceptible to predation, or less persistent in, under drought or less persistent under flooding. You know, a lot of the challenges that these plants face in nature. Right. And depending on the recombination of alleles from parent, parental source plan plants, this can affect the fitness of a population over time.

[00:31:27] Dennis McKenna: So for example, a cultivated plant that is perhaps a clone of a wild Ayahuasca specimen, but.

[00:31:38] Dennis McKenna: If it’s cultivated under an agroforestry management context, then certain traits may emerge that make it more fit for that type of management as opposed to not being domesticated at all. So, so the, in effect, the task of the forestry manager is to maximize those fitness qualities that make it suitable for sustainable production and sustainable.

Am I, am I more or less on the right track here?

[00:32:13] Michael Coe: You’re on the right track, yeah. So we want to under.

[00:32:16] Dennis McKenna: So you want to maximize those fitness properties.

[00:32:18] Michael Coe: Absolutely.

[00:32:19] Dennis McKenna: Because you can’t remove these plants from human interactions. I mean, like it or not, these are managed by humans, by human communities that are. Because they are keystone medicinal species.

[00:32:35] Michael Coe: Right, Absolutely. And so we want to understand among these four varieties, you know, how can we maximize their physical fitness and Understand some of the fitness related costs of harvest and environmental variability. Right. Because we know we’re facing some global climatic changes and challenges to the very ecosystems that support these plants. And so what does this look like over time? And how will these plants be best adapted for the environments in which they encounter not only in the present time, but also in the future?

And so this is something that we’re interested in learning about and really scaling up. You know, we are aiming to actually have over 5,000 lianas planted along with their associated host trees. And we’d like to even scale that up even greater. You know, with the expansion of the project, we’re keeping our goals very modest to begin with. And as we gain support over time and we can, you know, demonstrate that this is successful, we would like to provide a platform for really leading and pioneering a way in which we can achieve sustainability locally, locally grown, sustainably sourced ayahuasca, locally here, and then be a platform or a model for other retreat centers or other locations in Brazil, Ecuador, other places where they can kind of see what is being done with what we have done in our example of this and, and scale this up to where others can apply the same kind of the tools and techniques to be able to do this. So that way we have the sustainability for all retreat centers and all people that are consuming it globally.

[00:34:16] Dennis McKenna: Yeah, so.

[00:34:20] Dennis McKenna: That’S very important because it’s so much more complex than just plant more ayahuasca.

[00:34:27] Michael Coe: Yes, absolutely.

[00:34:28] Dennis McKenna: Yes, we need to plant more ayahuasca, but we need to do it in an intelligent way that maximizes the fitness that makes these cultivated varieties sustainable, that support sustainability.

We also need to, we, I mean, meaning that indigenous people, the indigenous community, we need to preserve the integrity and the fitness of those ancestral non cultivated plants that these are coming from.

So, and basically your, your Pachanishi project is a test laboratory for, for, for figuring out all these criteria. It’s such a complex thing. Are you working mainly with, you’re working with, with younger people in the community? Are they your students? Are you able to bring them in and work with them?

[00:35:25] Michael Coe: This is one of the major goals of my lab. So I’m looking at the co creation of knowledge, right. Woven science frameworks combining contemporary ecology, contemporary ethnobiology with indigenous and traditional knowledge systems. And one of the goals is to bring local Shipibo knowledge holders into my lab. Those that are seeking to understand the science behind, you know, ecology and how we view, you know, the plants, but also having the wisdom and their, and traditional knowledge that has been passed down to these local knowledge holders as a way in which we can produce knowledge together. And the goal is that we can successfully guide sustainable management integrating these knowledge systems together. And I have several, you know, prospective indigenous knowledge holders in my lab that I would like to bring in, you know, one of which has a degree in agroforestry, you know, from the local university in Pukalpa. And so, you know, this is an interesting dynamic where I would love to bring this student in so that this person can become an empowered knowledge holder that actually helps to guide the Pachinishi project in itself, you know, as a leader in the field, combining these knowledge systems and empowering the local community themselves to see the work that they’re doing and how this will actually lead to the continuation and knowledge and practices associated with the ancestral knowledge and understanding of the plants.

So this is one of our major goals, is to support this collaboration between local students that are interested in learning and that would like to be leaders in the field and support this kind of work and other sustainable efforts in the Amazon basin. So we’re definitely seeking some support to be able to bring these students in the lab, you know, as well as others that are really helping to, you know, you know, see how we can utilize, you know, hypothesis driven research and ethobiology to help inform, you know, global medicine security and, you know, really approach this from a scale in which we have students from all over, you know, that are really helping to address some of the major concerns that we’re facing.

[00:37:46] Dennis McKenna: Yeah, and that, that touches on the other thing I wanted to ask you about because as you know, within the academic community, the non indigenous academic community, but the ethnobiology.

[00:38:02] Dennis McKenna: Interested people outside that, there’s tremendous interest now in ethnobiology and there’s a lack of programs for people to take and there’s a great deal of hunger for this kind of information. And I might mention at this point, Michael was the originator of the ethnobotany course that the McKenna Academy is now offering. 

[00:38:29] Dennis McKenna: That’s been expanded, but he was the first and it was really his brainchild.

People can sign up for that course and they could learn. It’s basically a graduate level course, very intensive, very comprehensive in ethnobiology. But I used to be in academics. I guess I am sort of. I actually used to be in kind of a position that Michael is. I find there is so much interest on the part of young people.

They say, where can I study this stuff? I want to go study this stuff. Is your lab a Possibility for people to join if they’re able to.

Whatever they have to do to get there, pay tuition. I mean, should I be encouraging people to contact you if they want to come study, even if they’re not indigenous? I mean, like I say, everybody’s indigenous to Earth somewhere.

[00:39:24] Michael Coe: Absolutely.

[00:39:25] Dennis McKenna: Looks like you’re welcoming people to get involved on this page.

[00:39:30] Michael Coe: Absolutely.

[00:39:31] Dennis McKenna: Encouraging people to join the effort, as it were. And is that what you’re hoping for?

[00:39:39] Michael Coe: Absolutely, sir. I mean, the reality of it is there’s not too many of us ethnobiologists out there anymore, especially to the younger generations. I mean, I see a few students here and there in my periphery. But to be honest, we have a lack of programs, we have a lack of education on this. And this is something that I am hopeful that is going to change, you know, especially given the state of the world, you know, I’m encouraging and I’m open to supporting students that would like to join my lab and help in any way in which they, you know, are inspired to do.

And I think it has incredible potential, you know, to help reinspire, you know, our, you know, our desire for ethnobiology, but also bring it into international focus once again with the work that we’re doing.

You know, this is ever important, and this is something that I bring to the forefront of my courses, even if they’re not ethnobiology related, is just really, you know, the wonderful position that ethnobiologists are in to play a role as bridges between worlds and sharing the message that, you know, the survival of our species depends on how we successfully manage our relationships with the natural world. And the lovely position that ethnobiology is in and the people that we, you know, that are in this field is that we have such diversity and skill sets and interdisciplinarity that we can work collectively to help address some of these global challenges.

And I see our discipline as something that’s ever important and should be taught from, you know, kindergarten all the way up, you know, know, really, one of the great, you know, examples I give is that, you know, when we think about how fragile our society is, you know, we’ve built everything up on, you know, on convenience. You know, we have the convenience to go to the grocery stores. We have the convenience to utilize, you know, our technology to connect with people. And there’s a lot of great things that have come from our surplus and our ability to have convenience. But the challenge that has come with that is an incredible loss of general knowledge and knowledge and connection with nature that are vital to our survival.

You know, I’ve experienced and many of us even, you know, recently, you know, challenges at the grocery store when things weren’t available.

And it really kind of puts it into perspective. It’s like, you know, if, for example, our infrastructure face challenges and we no longer receive shipments to the store, you know, how many of us could actually go hunt? You know, how many of us could actually track an animal, let alone be successful at a given hunt and, you know, and. And process it in such a way that we can provide for our families? You know, tomorrow, if we weren’t able to go to fast food or go to the grocery store and do this, this would be in a tremendous challenge for most people on the planet. And the wild thing is, as you mentioned, we’re all indigenous to somewhere, but somewhere along the line, our ancestors were very good at being able to hunt and track an animal and be successful at it, or we wouldn’t be here.

And another example.

[00:43:01] Dennis McKenna: Yeah.

[00:43:02] Michael Coe: How could we grow our own food in such a way that we could provide for our families?

[00:43:07] Dennis McKenna: Well, that’s the interesting thing.

The societies that are most equipped to.

[00:43:16] Dennis McKenna: Meet the global. The collapse of the global ecology are actually indigenous people because they’ve been doing for thousands of years, and they have the skills that are necessary. Yes, you or I.

If we couldn’t go to Savon or Whole Foods and buy foods, I mean, the society would collapse completely after about two weeks of that.

[00:43:41] Michael Coe: It would go sideways.

[00:43:42] Dennis McKenna: There’d be cannibals in the streets, literally.

[00:43:44] Michael Coe: Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:43:46] Dennis McKenna: We want to avoid this if possible.

[00:43:49] Michael Coe: Absolutely.

[00:43:50] Dennis McKenna: If students are interested in doing this and interested in joining your effort, it would be great if they could bring resources to it. I mean, if they.

[00:44:05] Dennis McKenna: Don’T have the sufficient resources to bring a lot of students in as postdocs and graduate students that you pay for, but if they can maybe collaborate with your lab and develop grants and bring that money in to help foster the kind of work that you’re doing, you’d welcome that. You’d be open?

[00:44:29] Michael Coe: Absolutely. Absolutely. We are. You know, we would love as much support as possible. You know, I would love to have a thriving lab full of, you know, you know, master’s, PhD, postdoc, you know, even undergrads to help us. You know, again, comes with the challenges of being able to fund these, you know, these degrees and the, you know, and the research focus and being able to fund the research and support all of this. You know, that’s the challenge of, you know, all academic pursuits. But I’M definitely taking a grassroots approach now. In addition to seeking support from traditional funding sources, I’ve started a donation kind of campaign for my lab, where we now have a donations account set up for donors that would like to support us in our work.

And we’re aiming to raise funds to support local students, students from around the world that are interested in pursuing don, you know, a degree, you know, focusing on interdisciplinary science, combining, you know, ethnobiology, you know, different lanes of ecology and other interdisciplinary science so that we can help work together.

And I would love to do this, and I am doing this, but I would love to do it for more students than not. And so the challenge now is just to have enough funding to be able to support people in the lab and to ensure that they gain the necessary skills so that they can be the continuation to. So that they can help continuation of the discipline, but also help contribute to what we know globally and help spread the message and the work and continue it in that way.

[00:46:10] Dennis McKenna: Well, that’s fantastic. I mean, you can see here on the page that we’re sharing the different areas that your lab is working in. And if people want to get involved, they can, and they can collaborate.

And also the fact that you.

You finally managed to set up a site where people can donate, presumably tax deductible donations to support its work. We will put all those links, of course, on the episode page for this podcast and links to your ethnobiology course and everything else. So the resources are here.

And what is always in these endeavors, as I’m finding by finding out for myself as a person trying to run a nonprofit, there’s always a lack of financial support, but just modest amounts of financial support can actually accomplish a great deal if it’s intelligently spent. So I’m going to encourage people to look at these sites, which will post and your donation sites and the work that you’ve already done, which is quite a body of work you’ve presented at ESPD55, a fantastic presentation, which I could barely understand, but that’s okay. I’m slow when it comes to mathematical, bodily and that sort of thing, but people will get it. And it’s really important work that you’re doing, Michael. And I hope that this will bring some attention to it. And we look forward. We’re already planning for ESP D60 and you’ll be on the menu for sure, on the destination list. And just keep us informed.

[00:48:05] Michael Coe: Absolutely.

[00:48:07] Dennis McKenna: Is there anything we.

We could probably go on for hours. I mean, that’s such a rich Topic. But is there anything we haven’t touched on yet that you want to be sure we discuss before we close out?

[00:48:21] Michael Coe: I mean, honestly, you know, I’m hopeful that we’re, you know, entering into an era, especially with the resurgence of interest in psychedelic research and, you know, the recognition of the importance of traditional knowledge systems and ethnobiology as a whole. You know, I’m. I’m hopeful that we’re entering into an era where we see greater support for. For these knowledge systems, for ethnobiology, for looking at relationships with the natural world in a way that we begin to see it from a symbiotic perspective.

That’s one of the beautiful messages that you’ve really brought into the world recently, and I guess has gained more attention recently.

And this is something that should be echoed in every classroom, in every hall, because this is not a common message that was accepted and now is becoming what we need to be able to do.

[00:49:20] Dennis McKenna: So, you know, this is the crisis of our age, is our estrangement from nature, our isolation from nature. The work you’re doing is trying to push back against that, to reestablish that symbiotic relationship, which fortunately, in the context of indigenous societies, still exists, has always existed, but it’s marginalized and it’s disregarded because we’re much too preoccupied with our technology, our toys, the AI.

[00:49:59] Dennis McKenna: Sickness, all of these things.

There are not. These kind of technological solutions like that are not going to save us. What’s going to save us is rediscovering our symbiotical allies and our symbiotic relationships with nature. And guess what? Psychedelic plants and fungi are one of the tools for doing that. More than anything else. Psychedelics can help us rediscover, reappreciate our connection to nature, because, in fact, we are all one. We’re not separate from it. This is a. This is a con game that’s been foisted on us, this idea that we’re separated and that we own nature. I’m sorry, nature owns us if there’s an ownership equation there and we need to nurture our relationship, not destroy it. And it’s unfortunately that the policies of so many governments, particularly the United States government, seem antithetical to that. Their program is drill, baby, drill.

They don’t say the other side of it, which is inevitably, that leads to bird, baby, bird.

[00:51:14] Michael Coe: Yes.

[00:51:15] Dennis McKenna: And that is what’s going to be going on in about 10 years if we don’t get our act together.

[00:51:22] Michael Coe: But the beautiful thing is, Dennis, there are Individuals like yourself, the people that are before you, people like our, you know, our family, our friends, our community, and everybody that knows the message in which you’re speaking.

And we are continuing to be voices and supporting this message across humanity.

So even though we are facing tremendous challenges globally, you know, we have the ability to continue that and to shine our light and to, you know, support the continuation of this awakening and reconnection to what we know to be true. These undeniable universal truths that we need to reconcile our relationship with nature and have reverence in how we approach our relationship with the natural world and how beautiful we get to do this.

[00:52:12] Dennis McKenna: Yes. And we have the example. And today is Thanksgiving in the States and we should all remind ourselves how much we have to be thankful for.

Most people that will be listening to this podcast are better off.

The 99% of the people in the world who have to face challenges that are unimaginable. So we should not forget to have gratitude.

[00:52:39] Michael Coe: Absolutely.

[00:52:40] Dennis McKenna: And Michael, I can’t tell you how much I respect the work that you’re doing.

And you as a person, your passion shows through.

You’re one of those younger people that can really make a difference.

You’re working very hard.

[00:52:57] Michael Coe: So thank you, Dennis, all the best.

[00:52:59] Dennis McKenna: To you, my friend.

[00:53:00] Michael Coe: Thank you. I’m so honored and privileged and thank you for helping me spread this message and share it on your platform.

And so thank you so much for anybody interested to following us. In my lab, I’m Dr. Michael Co on Instagram and we’ll be continuing to post our work and as we move forward, when our projects and hopefully we’ll have some exciting updates soon. Soon as we gain support.

[00:53:26] Dennis McKenna: Yeah. And we’ll post all these links on the episode for the podcast. So thank you.

That’s wonderful, Michael. Keep after it.

[00:53:35] Michael Coe: Thank you.

[00:53:37] Dennis McKenna: You know, when you’ve got. When you’ve got the biosphere, when you’ve got the community of intelligent species on your side, you can’t lose, right? We have to win and we have no option has to win.

So thanks so much. You can come back on my platform anytime you want.

[00:53:57] Michael Coe: Thank you, Dennis. I appreciate it.

[00:53:58] Dennis McKenna: You never left it.

[00:54:01] Michael Coe: Exactly. But it’s such an honor every time. So thank you so much.

[00:54:05] Dennis McKenna: Okay, thank you for sharing your time, Michael. Best of luck.

[00:54:10] Michael Coe: Okay, bye. Bye.

[00:54:11] Dennis McKenna: See you in touch.

[00:54:16] Outro: Join our mission to harmonize with the natural world.

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[00:54:36] Outro: Thank you for listening to Brainforest Café with Dennis McKenna. Find us online at Mckenna Academy.