Mark J. Plotkin, Ph.D.

The Power of Social Entrepreneurs to Change the World

Dr. Plotkin understands some of the unprecedented economic, environmental, social and cultural challenges that we are facing in the world today, and that the most efficient and effective way to turn these challenges into opportunities is to open the door to innovative thinkers with a social cause. In this speech, Dr. Plotkin outlines his inspiring journey and addresses the key goals that every social entrepreneur should follow in order to create a successful path for change. Audiences leave his presentations with renewed focus and energy to become true change agents in societies around the world.

Mitigating Climate Change: A Proven Approach

When the famously-iconoclastic Mayor of New York City endorses a presidential candidate based on climate change, we know that this difficult issue has been squarely placed on the local, regional, national and international agendas. But – in the age of killer hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy, melting polar ice caps, and increasingly weird weather patterns - it may seem as if the scope and scale of the climate change issue is so daunting that nothing can be done. However, when rainforests are burned, the carbon released into the atmosphere is the world’s second largest source of greenhouse gases. If we wish to mitigate global warming, the most efficient and effective way to do so is protecting tropical rainforests than the more intractable problem of reducing global fossil fuel consumption. In other words, if you are in a boat which is leaking, you should plug the leak in addition to bailing water. Mark Plotkin, Ph.D. has been working in the Amazon for 30 years and has developed a uniquely effective and efficient method of protecting rainforests and mitigating global warming. This enthralling lecture documents the trails and travails of this extraordinary adventure.

Living Longer & Better: 30 Years of Lessons from the Rainforest

Western medicine represents the most successful and sophisticated system of healing ever devised. Antibiotics, surgery, CAT scans – the list of medicines and technologies that treat and cure conditions and diseases once considered incurable is long and impressive.

That being said, western medicine does not have all the answers. On the one hand, we are threatened by “old” diseases – like increasingly drug-resistant bacteria that are killing tens of thousands of Americans each year. At the same time, we are menaced by “new” diseases -like AIDS or bird flu – that continue to arise. Meanwhile, we continue to suffer from what have been called “the diseases of industrial society” – like acid reflux, insomnia, and other forms of stress – that western medicine has never been able to cure.

Mark Plotkin, Ph.D. has spent much of the past three decades studying some of the most ancient and powerful shamans (medicine men and women) of the Amazon rainforest. This experience has given him unique insights into the healing powers and plants of these tribal healers – and why they don’t suffer many of the chronic diseases that plague our industrialized society. On the one hand, these cultures rely on plants and animals and the powerful chemicals they contain – pharmaceutical classes like beta blockers, statins, and ACE inhibitors are based on products of natural origin. At the same time, there are lessons to be learned from both practices and lifestyle from these so-called “primitive” peoples that can be of direct benefit to us here at home.

In this lecture, Dr. Plotkin – a spellbinding speaker and intrepid explorer – shares many of those lessons learned – from which we can all benefit.

Renowned ethnobotanist and best-selling author of Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice (in it’s 27th printing) and The Killers Within, Mark Plotkin’s work has been featured in a PBS Nova documentary, in an Emmy-winning Fox TV documentary, on the NBC Nightly News and Today Show and on CBS’ 48 Hours. Plotkin has also been the subject of several articles in Life, Newsweek, Smithsonian, Elle, People and he has been featured on National Public Radio.

For much of the past 30 years, Dr. Mark J. Plotkin has worked with and learned from the ancient shamans in the rainforests of Central and South America, providing him with incomparable knowledge of healing plants and shamanic traditions. He’s witnessed “medical miracles” and encounters with all that is magical and mysterious beyond anything he could dream while pursing his education at Harvard, Yale and Tufts. A trained ethnobotanist, he formerly served as Research Associate in Ethnobotanical Conservation as the Botanical Museum of Harvard University, Director of Plant Conservation at the World Wildlife Fund and Vice President of Conservation International and Research Associate at the Department of Botany of the Smithsonian Institution. In Washington, D.C., Plotkin currently serves as President of the Amazon Conservation Team, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting biological and cultural diversity of the tropical rain forest.