Editorial draft · writing/mini-plants-urgency-mini

The Urgency Is Still Real

Education, not medical advice. Drafts and study material from an independent research library. Citations on this page were checked on Oct 13, 2026; claims in the body text and organizational sources are still under review. What was checked.

Mini-EssayPlants of the Gods175 words3 source entriesstatus: editorial complete

The Urgency Is Still Real

“Schultes called the investigation urgent in 1967. Fifty-seven years later, …”ethnobotanypolicy

“Schultes called the investigation urgent in 1967. Fifty-seven years later, the urgency has not decreased.”

'In the search for new hallucinogens, we have much to do and little time in which to do it.'

Schultes said this in 1967. He was describing a race between documentation and destruction, a race he knew he was losing.

In 2026, the urgency he described has not diminished. The Amazon has lost approximately 20 percent of its forest cover since Schultes made this statement. An estimated language, the primary carrier of ethnobotanical knowledge, is lost every two weeks globally.

What has changed is the response. Mark Plotkin's Amazon Conservation Team, the ICEERS Foundation, the Society of Ethnobiology, and dozens of other organizations are working to document, protect, and transmit the knowledge that Schultes identified as endangered. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022) includes specific provisions for indigenous-managed territories.

This is progress. It is not sufficient. The race Schultes was watching in 1967 is still being lost at the macro scale, while individual documentation and protection efforts slow it in specific places.

Plants of the Gods was published as an emergency document. It remains one.