Presenter: John Carter

Format: MP4 Video file download
Includes: Audio & Slides

In 1996, my wife and I moved to the southern Brazilian Amazon to live on a 21,500 acre cattle ranch in the Mato Grosso frontier. Located eighteen hours from the nearest hospital by truck on horrific roads and trails, we lived off the grid with power provided by a diesel engine-driven generator for four hours a day and water from a spring pumped uphill by a water wheel to our headquarters. We raised our own beef and chicken and maintained a massive garden to feed the fifteen people that lived there year-round. Most rewarding of all was learning about the medicinal plants the surrounding forest provided in abundance. The local cowboys and pioneers knew a lot, but it was not until we met the incredible Indians in the Xingu region that we really understood the brilliance of their diet and natural pharmacy.