culture

What Detroiters are Doing with Discarded Tires

| ChrisHardmanWriter

ONE 2014 MORNING on Detroit’s northeast side, residents along Mapleridge were horrified to find that 10,000 tires had been stuffed into a row of abandoned houses on their street. The tires were stacked from floor to ceiling, piled in alleyways and jammed into garages. The fire hazard was high, and the disregard for neighborhood safety was disturbing. In the days that followed, community leaders organized a cleanup effort that took 30 volunteers 6 hours to haul the illegally dumped tires onto the curb for the city to pick up.

Tires figure prominently in the lives of Detroiters, and not because they live in the Motor City. There are just so many of them — illegally dumped in vacant lots, stuffed in abandoned buildings, discarded carelessly throughout neighborhoods. Some estimates put the number of tires littering Detroit’s neighborhoods at as many as 1 million.

Tires are considered a hazardous material, and as a result, they can cost as much as $2 each to safely dispose of. So it’s not surprising that unscrupulous tire haulers have been using Detroit’s vacant buildings and lots as their own personal dumping grounds for years.

“It tears me up, because we are talking about families,” says Audra Carson, native Detroiter and founder of De-tread, a start-up working to collect and dispose of Detroit’s abandoned tires. “People who aren’t from here or people who are disconnected, don’t realize that even if there are abandoned houses, there are still families living [nearby].”

Carson lists the dangers of abandoned tires in Detroit neighborhoods: piles of tires attract and provide homes for rodents; tires are highly flammable and create fires that are hard to extinguish; tires collect standing water that breeds insects that can carry disease.

Carson is so concerned about tires in the city that she left her two-decade career in corporate Detroit to launch De-tread in 2009. During her first cleanup project, with the Osborn Neighborhood Alliance in October of 2012, De-tread and a team of volunteers picked up 313 tires in less than 30 minutes.

Key to Carson’s strategy is to get the community involved in the actual hands-on challenge of tire removal. For her second cleanup, she returned to Osborn with a grant from the Skillman Foundation. De-tread, along with 50 volunteers, managed to get rid of 2,500 tires, hiring a licensed hauler to take them away and have the tires processed according to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality standards. “To be able to make that instant impact in a neighborhood is extremely rewarding,” Carson says.

Now De-tread is developing products to make from abandoned tires. “Once the rubber is in a certain form it can be molded into anything. Think about sandals, kitchen items. It runs the gamut of what can be done,” Carson says. “Where I want to be is funky, cool. We’re talking about furniture. We’re talking about apparel.” Carson plans to do more than just get rid of tires. She wants to use them to create manufacturing jobs for people in the city.

In another part of Detroit, Reverend Faith Fowler is already using abandoned tires to create jobs for people in her neighborhood. She is the Executive Director of Cass Community Social Services, which runs Cass Green Industries (CGI), a small business that employs people who face barriers to employment — some are homeless, recovering from addiction, or dealing with chronic health conditions.

“The recession was hitting Detroit hard but especially our people in terms of employment,” Reverend Fowler explains. “None of my people had cars so they couldn’t get to where the jobs were, and if they were able to finagle a ride, they weren’t considered because there were so many people who had been laid off of other jobs with great resumes that our folks didn’t stand a chance.”

Fowler began to search for a small business idea that would be self-sustaining and cheap to start. When she read an article about woven mud mats made out of recycled tires, she knew she had found the right product for Detroit. “We have tires everywhere,” she says. “Talk about a free resource.”

By employing homeless veterans, ex-cons, or chronically ill people, CGI relies on the talents of a population that is often overlooked. Fowler is proud that some of her employees have used CGI as a stepping stone to full-time, better paying jobs.

To create even more jobs CGI introduced a new product in 2014. Detroit Treads sandals are made out of the tire treads that are left over from making mud mats. The sandals were an instant hit. In the first 4 months CGI sold $82,000 worth of sandals at $25 a pair. By leveraging the power of social media, Cass Green Industries has sold products in every state and in five foreign countries.

Typically Green Industries is lucky to break even. Last year the business brought in $120,000 in sales from tire products as well as coasters handmade from recycled glass. Reverend Fowler points out that the business is there to create jobs, and currently Green Industries employs 20 people part time making $9 an hour. “Not only are they making money, they are making the city better,” she says.

It’s nearly impossible for the city of Detroit — which covers 138 square miles — to keep up with the tire problem. In sparsely populated neighborhoods with rows of abandoned houses, there are just too many places to hide. “These tire companies are looking for an area where there are abandoned homes and a very low population. So they have no eyes and ears watching them,” says Detroit Department of Neighborhoods District 4 Manager and lifelong Detroit resident Odell Tate.

As part of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s “Every neighborhood has a future” initiative, Tate works with community leaders, churches, and neighborhood watch programs to solve the problem of blight in District 4. “We have been very fortunate to have strong community block clubs and associations that radar and monitor tire situations,” he says. Vigilance and community cooperation are the keys to success in Tate’s district, where residents work closely with the police to report any suspicious activity.

In April 2015, the Duggan administration introduced the Improve Detroit mobile app as an easy and convenient way for citizens to let city hall know about problems in the city.  Using the app, residents with smartphones can report potholes, missing traffic signs, and illegal dumping. They can pinpoint the exact location of the problem and even submit a photo.

In addition to eyes on the street, Tate says surveillance cameras would be a good way to find out who is dumping in Detroit. “If we’re able to catch one of the tire companies, and we can make them an example, I think that would put the rest of them on notice,” Tate says. “[The residents] are fed up with companies coming in and disrespecting the neighborhood by dumping tires.”

Published on BeltMagazine by Chris Hardman

 

Mowtown to Growtown

| ChrisHardmanWriter

FOUR YEARS AGO, Detroit businessman John Hantz received national attention when he announced his plans to create the world’s largest urban farm in Detroit. His plan to buy vacant city land and convert it to orchards and tree farms was hailed as visionary by some and nefarious by others. After 4 years of negotiating wit the city and meeting with neighbors, Hantz Farms was finally able to purchase 1,400 vacant city-owned lots on Detroit’s lower east side for half a million dollars.

“The purpose of the investment is to make neighborhoods more livable,” says Hqntz Farms president Mike Score. “Our intention is to take larger blocks of contiguous land and make our woodlands a permanent feature in the city.”

In a bankrupt city that has lost a quarter of its population in 10 years, vacant land has become a pressing  concern. The city of Detroit is drowning in the fniancial burden of owning nearly 200,000 vacant parcels–almost half of them residential plots.

The Hantz proposal, initially a plan to create commercial fruit orchards and cut-your-own Christmas tree farms, had been scaled back to a simpler tree-planting project by the time the city approved the land sale in December 2012. Hantz Woodlands–a subsidiary of Hantz Farms–agreed to buy 1,400 vacant parcels from the city, clean up the debris, tear down decaying buildings, plant 15,000 trees, mow the grass regularly,and pay taxes on the land. The parcels are interspersed among homes that people are caring for and living in.

A small, but loud, group of community activists allege that the transaction is a “land grab” and demand that Detroit’s surplus land go into a community trust. They accuse Hantz of greed disguised as philanthropy. What if Hantz sells some of those parcels for housing, they ask, and he makes a profit off the cheap land?

Score has posed that question to the people currently living in the area. “If you go up and down the street and ask people, ‘What do you really want to happen in this neighborhood?’ they say they want a house on every lot,” he says. At this time, there isn’t a great demand for land in Detroit, but if in the future people decide this is a nice place to live and Hantz Woodlands can build houses on some of its land, Score says the neighbors would be pleased.

Hantz Farms maintains a small demonstration site next to its office on Mt. Elliot Street. Oak and sugar maple trees in tidy rows grow on 50 lots that formerly were used as dumping grounds. Gone are the frayed tires, soggy mattresses, and semi trailer full of chemicals. The drug dealer that used to operate on the corner has moved on, and the 80-year-old woman who lives on the street is delighted.

Although urban farming seems a viable income source for a city with a surplus of land an a shortage of people, Detroit lacked a formal policy for urban agriculture until recently. The city’s first agriculture zoning ordinance, adopted by Detroit City Council in April 2013, recognizes agriculture as a legal use of land and establishes guidelines for it. With the law on their side, Detroit’s farming entrepreneurs should now be able to avoid spending 4 years and a lot of money for the right to buy land in Detroit.

Published in Organic Gardening magazine by Chris Hardman

 

Eating Local at the Ballpark

| ChrisHardmanWriter

AS A FAITHFUL Detroit Tigers fan, I have been known to purchase my share of ballpark food. It’s one of the only places I’ll let my kids eat cotton candy and one of the few places you’ll see me munching on a hot dog on a white bun. But as the editor of a local food magazine I am always interested in who produces the food we’re buying and where they are from. The more I researched, and the more I ate, I began to realize that one of the largest venues for Michigan foods is indeed Comerica Park.

Having a hot dog at the ballpark is almost obligatory. The most famous of all hot dogs, the Ball Park Frank, made its debut right here in Detroit. In 1957 the owner of the Tigers challenged local sausage makers to create the ideal ballpark hot dog. Hygrade Food Products Corp., a Detroit-based meatpacking company, answered the call and baseball history was made. Although Ball Park Franks are no longer made in Detroit, their tie to the Tigers remains.

The ideal vessel for the hot dog had already been in use at the park in the form of soft, white hot dog buns. Brown’s Bun Baking Company in Detroit has been baking buns for Tigers fans since the 1930s. The buns are also used for Winter’s sausage, the official sausage of the Detroit Tigers. This family-owned company was started in 1951 by a German immigrant and master sausage maker named Eugene Winter. His daughter, Rose Mary Wuerz, runs the company today.

Another Michigan company, Garden Fresh Gourmet, sells chips and fresh salsa in the ballpark. From humble beginnings in Ferndale, Jack and Annette Aronson have created a top-selling brand that is sold throughout the country. Not only has the company received awards for taste and freshness, Garden Fresh has also been recognized for its commitment to Michigan’s economy and to helping other small businesses.

Comerica even has local pizza makers. Little Caesars has six stands in the park. The well-known pizza franchise is owned by Ilitch Holdings, the same company that owns the Tigers. When Mike Ilitch, who once played shortstop for the Tiger’s farm system, purchased the Detroit Tigers in 1992, his baseball dreams came true.

For the gourmand, the exclusive Tiger Club offers a scratch kitchen utilizing local produce when possible. Regional Executive Chef Mark Szubeczak’s enthusiasm for good food sets the stage for this upscale venue. The menu varies from game to game, but freshness and quality stay the same. A beautifully appointed cheese table features house-made bread and a rotating selection of cheeses—from Michigan and beyond—displayed on cutting boards in the shape of the Michigan mitten. Fresh smoothies and sushi are prepared in front of waiting fans.

A baseball game wouldn’t be complete without at least one or two snacks. My kids always go straight for the cotton candy and now that I found out the candy is spun on site, I can’t use “It’s not local” as a reason to say no. As a matter of fact, many of the snacks are from local companies. Nuts come from Germack Pistachio Company, located on Russell Street near Eastern Market. The popcorn comes from the Detroit Popcorn Company on Telegraph Road in Redford Township. And the exclusive Tiger Traxx ice cream comes from a 118-year-old creamery on the west side of the state.

Hudsonville Creamery introduced the limited edition Tiger Traxx to fans last year. Imagine vanilla ice cream infused with chocolate-covered pretzel baseballs and thick fudge swirls. According to Hudsonville sales and marketing lead Randy Stickney, the flavor was so popular with park-goers that the creamery was unable to keep up with the demand. This year Hudsonville has increased production and plans to offer the flavor at the park and at grocery stores until October or even November, “if the Tigers do what I expect them to do,” Stickney says.

Also debuting last year, was the Michigan craft beer stand near the standing-room-only section of the park. The stand features 26 local brews, 10 on draft and 16 in bottles. According to Bob Thormeier, general manager of Comerica’s concessionaire—Delaware North Companies—sales in that space went up 600% following the introduction of Michigan craft beers. The growing interest in Michigan specialty beers has created an entire generation of beer lovers who are faithful to their brands. Beer comes from local breweries including New Holland, Bells, Atwater, Motor City and Arbor Brewing. Thormeier points out that Michigan fans have supported the Tigers during good times and bad, so the Tigers simply want to give back.

While I enjoyed tours and tastings, the rest of my family shivered in the stands enduring high winds, sleet and temperatures below 40°. Within an inning of returning to my seat, I was too cold to dance during the seventh inning stretch. As I pulled my hood up over my Detroit Tigers baseball cap, I saw hail falling into my bag of Detroit Popcorn Company popcorn. I turned to my family and whined, “There’s no hail in baseball!”

But there sure is a lot of Michigan food in Comerica Park.

Published in edibleWOW magazine by Chris Hardman

 

Bumper Crop: A Detroit Garden

| ChrisHardmanWriter

WHAT DO YOU GET when you combine zoo animal manure, coffee grounds and shipping crates? The answer is an environmentally friendly start to Detroit’s newest urban garden.

Located on Merritt in southwest Detroit, the Cadillac Urban Garden marked its first year with a bumper crop and steadfast community support in spite of the drought and the parched economy. “It has exceeded our wildest dreams,” says Sylvia Gucken, garden volunteer and assistant to the chairman of the Ideal Group, the local business that administers the garden.

The concept is simple: On Saturday mornings and after work, neighborhood residents are invited to stroll through the gardens and pick the produce free of charge. What happens next is magical. People stop to talk to each other. Neighbors who previously only exchanged a superficial “hello” become friends.

“Our mission is to create a space that promotes the health and security of our community,” says Frank Venegas, Ideal Group chairman. “Cadillac Urban Gardens is producing vegetables, community health and growth.” Ideal Group, an eight-time GM Supplier of the Year, worked with both for-profit and nonprofit organizations to create the garden. General Motors provided 250 shipping crates for the raised-bed gardens. The soil was supplied by Detroit Dirt, with composting materials, coffee grounds and food scraps from the Detroit Zoo, Astro Café, the Marriott Hotel and GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant. Better Day Ministries and southwest Detroit residents provided labor.

Children from the neighborhood are the heart and soul of this garden. Take 13-year-old Christopher Lara, for example. The adult volunteers credit him with keeping the garden alive during the summer drought. Pedaling back and forth from home to the garden on his bike, Lara spent between five and 15 hours a week tending to the 250 raised beds. With this summer’s inconsistent rainfall, Lara put a lot of his energy into watering the crops. The sturdy boxes of overflowing plants that cover a once-abandoned parking lot delight him.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says. His summer as a gardener has sparked an interest in becoming a landscape architect.

All told, neighborhood youth have contributed more than 800 volunteer hours working in the garden. Ideal Group’s Esperanza Cantu is responsible for motivating and organizing those young people. She draws on the nearby Cristo Rey High school, Latino Family Services, LA SED and Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision for labor. Many of those same kids will bring their parents to the garden to enjoy the vegetables they have planted.

Gucken summarizes the spirit of the garden in one sentence: “Anyone who comes here is part of the garden. They own it.”

Published in edibleWOW magazine by Chris Hardman

 

Purses from Plastic

| ChrisHardmanWriter

THE UBIQUITOUS PLASTIC grocery bag—used for lunches, garbage cans, and groceries—is one of the most prolific sources of pollution in modern-day society. Scientists estimate that worldwide people use 500 trillion plastic bags each year. In the Americas alone, the United States reports using 380 billion plastic bags a year. Cheap to buy and easy to store, the plastic bag has become the favorite of grocery stores who no longer ask, “Paper or plastic?”

Lack of recycling programs and improper disposal of the bags create a waste nightmare and environmental hazards that are too complex to track. Non biodegradable plastic bags travel on the wind polluting our oceans and forests or take up permanent residence in our already overcrowded landfills.

Since 2006 an innovative program that started in Costa Rica is using those bags in a most environmentally friendly way. Women living in small villages on the Caribbean Coast convert the plastic bags into thread and weave attractive and colorful purses with them.

Weaving for Nature is run by WIDECAST, a conservation organization that protects sea turtles in the Caribbean and its surroundings. The program solves several problems at once. The bags are re-used, eliminating the need for disposal, and the business gives people an environmentally friendly income source.

The program is organized to promote fair trade standards with an environmental mission. The weaver receives 75% of the profit and the rest goes toward sea turtle conservation efforts. The weavers, mostly housewives in small villages, work under fair and relaxed conditions and are compensated for all stages of production from collecting and washing the bags through the finished product.

According to Didiher Chacon-Chaverri, WIDECAST Country Coordinator in Costa Rica, weavers produce about 3 purses a week that means they can earn $180 a month to supplement their family’s main income.

To date the project has employed more than 50 women in villages on the coast of Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua. In 2008 the sale of bags, coin purses, plastic figures and Christmas Tree ornaments generated $75,000 in income for the four coastal communities.

The environmental benefits of this program are far-reaching. Along the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and other countries, the plastic bag is a deadly enemy of marine habitats.

Because many of these bags are thrown on the ground or tossed into rivers, they often end up in the sea where they suffocate coral and kill sea turtles. For the hapless sea turtle gliding through the ocean, a plastic bag looks just like its favorite food, the jellyfish. The turtle gobbles up the bag and either chokes on the plastic or feels full and stops looking for real food.

Unfortunately plastic waste of any kind affects the entire marine environment. Because plastic bags are made of polyethylene, they are not biodegradable, and even if the bags are broken into smaller pieces, their tiny particles invade all levels of the food chain causing disease and sometimes death for marine life.

The Dolphin Research Center in Florida estimates that 100,000 marine mammals die each year from eating plastic bags.

WIDECAST estimates that each purse made is removing approximately 70 plastic bags from the environment for a total of 12,000 plastic bags a month. The bags are sold throughout Costa Rica in tourist areas and gift shops and online through http://www.inbio.ac.cr.

They range in color and size and come in various styles including beach bags, calabash bags, messenger bags, water bottle cases, and coin purses. For more information about the project, visit latinamericanseaturtles.org.

Published in Americas magazine, September-October 2009, by Chris Hardman

 

Bolivian Voices

| ChrisHardmanWriter

ON A SATURDAY morning in El Alto, Bolivia, a group of men and women at the Internet café Scorpio are intently studying the computer screens in front of them. Some of these people have never had Internet access before, but now they are learning about blogging, digital photography and video techniques—all the tools they need to have a voice in the online global dialogue that is the Internet.

This three-hour workshop is part of Voces Bolivianas, an innovative program that gives Bolvians from all sectors of society a chance to tell their story online. Typically Internet content about Bolivia is created by one segment of the population: the middle and upper classes. But Voces Bolivianas enables people from underrepresented populations—the poor, women and indigenous groups—to publish their stories. The result is a mosaic of video, writing and audio that is as diverse as the country itself. “I think the Internet can be the great equalizer, as it connects people that may not normally interact offline,” says Voces Bolivianas Director Eduardo Ávila.

Along with Mario Durán and Hugo Miranda, two other well-known Bolivian bloggers, Ávila started Voces Bolivianas in September 2007. Startup funds came from Rising Voices, an outreach of the non-profit organization Global Voices online. The initial workshop trained 23 new bloggers and created demand for even more workshops. For the first time, people like Marisol Medina, a student at the Public University of El Alto, had a platform to communicate online, whether she was writing about her quest to learn the native indigenous language of Aymara or the unfairness of boys throwing balloons at girls during carnival. In her blog called Realities, Loyola Larico writes about the importance of traditions. “From the cultural point of view, we should not forget our traditions and customs,” she writes. “My grandfather would say, if you know where you come from, you will know where to go.”

Other Voces Bolivianas students, including artisans, laborers, government workers and teachers, have created blogs about local politics, daily life in El Alto, Bolivian rock music, art and dance, and neighborhood struggles. “I think these groups have not been on as equal footing as many other sectors in Bolivia, and now they have just as much opportunity to express themselves as anyone else,” Ávila says. “I have also been content with how many of the young people and university students are finding a place to connect in regards to maintaining customs and traditions.” Translators at Voces Bolivianas maintain a site in the Aymara language and plan to add sites in Bolivia’s two other indigenous languages: Quechua and Guaraní.

The Voces Bolivianas training program also includes instruction in photography, video and audio. In one workshop, the participants were able to wander around El Alto and take photographs to share with the world on the free picture-posting site Flickr. The students were given access to video cameras to produce videos about daily life and traditions that are posted on the highly popular web site youtube.com. Some of the students produced audio recordings, called podcasts, to include with their blogs.

The success of the first project created demand for an additional project in El Alto and another in the city of Santa Cruz. According to Ávila, Voces Bolivianas would like to expand to two new cities and add more language sites in the immediate future. “We are in the process of looking for more funding to be able to take advantage of the interest in this field to be able to reach more people,” he explains.

Published in Americas Magazine by Chris Hardman

Native Lands for Wolf and Man

| ChrisHardmanWriter

AS THE SPIRIT of the wolf returns to Idaho’s national forest, so does the spirit of the Native American tribe in charge of reintroducing them.

For the first time, the U.S. government has contracted an Indian nation—the Nez Percé tribe of Northern Idaho—to manage the recovery of an endangered species—the gray wolf.  The success of this project is being hailed as a cultural victory for a people with a strong spiritual connection to an elusive and beautiful animal.

The history of the Nez Percé is sadly similar to the history of the gray wolf—both were forced out of their territory to make room for white settlers.  In 1855, the Nez Percé signed a treaty with the U.S. government allowing the tribe to keep most of their traditional lands in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

The discovery of gold in 1860, made this land extremely valuable, so the U.S. government decided to take over most of the tribe’s land  by creating a second treaty in 1863. But the Nez Percé claimed that the tribe never agreed to the second treaty.

Hostilities escalated and a series of battles and forced marches ensued. After the Nez Percé surrendered in 1877, the remaining members of the tribe were shuffled around the country until they finally were placed on a reservation in Lapwai, Idaho.

At the same time the Nez Percé lived in the Northwest so did thousands of wolves, but as white settlers spread throughout  Idaho’s forests and rivers, the wolves soon learned that unlike the Nez Percé, the new people did not welcome their presence. Instead of respect and kinship, the white man possessed a deep fear of his canine neighbors.

In the 1860s, hunters slaughtered thousands of wolves by scattering poisoned bison carcasses around wolf feeding grounds. When the demand for wolf fur increased, hunters killed a many as 1,000 wolves a winter.

In Montana alone more than 80,000 wolves were killed in a 40-year period. The U.S. government joined the slaughter in the 1900s by hiring hunters and trappers to kill wolves thought dangerous to livestock. Thirty years later, the gray wolf had been eliminated from most of the U.S.

“Our history has mirrored one another’s,” says Jamie Pinkham, Nez Percé  Tribal Council member. “The settlers had two obstacles: that of the Indian people and that of the predators such as the wolves, who were both in conflict as to access to the land.  [As a result] both the Nez Percé  and the gray wolf were dispossessed. Today we see that mirror continue but in a more optimistic journey.”

The same government that persecuted both the wolves and the Nez Percé in the past is supporting a conservation program that is providing rebirth for both groups today.

Between 1995 and 1996, as part of a three-state reintroduction plan, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) released a total of 35 gray wolves on one million acres of federally protected land in Idaho’s Frank Church-river of No Return Wilderness. At the same time the FWS hired the Nez Percé tribe to manage, monitor and research the wolves.

Not all residents of Idaho welcome the wolves’ return. Ranchers fear that reintroduction of this crafty predator is a danger to their livestock.

Led by the American Farm Bureau Federation, a group of protesters sued to prevent the return of the wolves to Idaho before they were released. The case languished in court and the wolves were released anyway.

To compensate livestock owners for their financial losses, a program supported by the conservation organization Defenders of Wildlife pays ranchers market price for any cattle wolves kill. To ease the continued tension between ranchers and conservationists, the Nez Percé  work hard to establish good relationships between biologists and ranchers.

In 1996 the Nez Percé invited the Wolf Education and Research Center, to relocate on tribal lands in Winchester, Idaho. “It became a natural marriage,” Pinkham says. “On one hand, we’re handling the wild reintroduction and on the other hand, we have these 11 ambassador wolves who help create a positive message for the recovery of their wild cousins.”

The center’s captive-born pack of 11 wolves living in a 20-acre enclosure gives the public an opportunity to view a secretive animal in a natural setting. The center’s primary goal is to develop management plans that will allow wolves and humans to coexist in the same environment. With more knowledge, better and more informed decisions about wolf conservation can be made.

Wolves figure prominently in the Nez Percé religion. They are admired because of their hunting skills, their language and their tradition of sharing food. Having the wolves return to Idaho is viewed by the Nez Percé as the return of a brother, a vital link to their culture and traditions of the past.

“We are both regaining a rightful place on the land we were once removed from,” Pinkham says.

Published in Americas magazine, April 2000, by Chris Hardman

Medicinal Weeds of the Maya

| ChrisHardmanWriter

WORKING WITH the Highland Maya in Chiapas, Mexico, University of Georgia researcher John R. Stepp has documented that weeds are a more valuable source of medicine than plants found deep in the forest. Stepp spent 9 months tracking medicinal plant use of 208 people in 6 communities. He found that the majority of medicines used were made from weeds found close by homes and villages.

The Maya are well known for their use of medicinal plants, and in recent years scientists from around the world have tapped into their knowledge in search of cures for cancer, AIDS, and other devastating diseases. But very little research has been done on the medicinal value of weeds — those pesky invasive species that quickly take over disturbed habitat near homes and other cleared areas. According to Stepp, weeds are a logical choice for medicinal use, “Weeds are readily available. You know that they are going to be there when you go looking for them. If you’re sick, you don’t want to travel a long ways to find a plant.”

Using weeds found close to home eliminates the need to store plants, saving time and effort. “Some of the more volatile compounds, if you dry them, lose their strength. So it’s much better from a treatment point of view to go out and get fresh material,” Stepp says. In contrast to other Indian groups throughout Latin America who dry and store plants, the Highland Maya rely almost exclusively on fresh material.

There are biochemical reasons why weeds make good medicine as well. Most plants manufacture compounds for defense against herbivores and insects. A lot of these compounds have medicinal properties — in small doses they are medicinal, in large doses they are toxic. Weeds tend to produce more compounds than plants living in the forest, who use structural defenses like thick bark and tannins to protect against browsing. Because most weeds only live for a short period of time, they can’t afford to expend the energy required to develop structural defenses. Developing chemical defenses is much more economical.

Stepp found that the majority of medicinal weeds were used for gastrointestinal diseases and respiratory illnesses, two conditions that account for 80% of health problems. One of the most frequently used weeds is the species Verbena litoralis. Named Yakan kulub wamal in Maya (grasshopper leg herb), this weed provides a potent cure for diarrhea. The Mexican sunflower, Tithonia diversifolia, is used to treat abdominal pain and diarrhea.

The Highland Maya have lived in the Chiapas region of Mexico for more than one thousand years. As a result, they have accumulated a vast understanding of medicinal flora that has been passed down through oral traditions to today’s population of 800,000 people. By the age of 5, children can name 100 plants, and adults can name nearly 600. This widespread knowledge has minimized the need for specialized healers. Unless they have a very serious illness or a condition with a supernatural element — like a curse —  most people simply go out in the backyard and treat themselves.

Stepp says his study contrasts with the romantic image of native people gathering secret plants deep in the rainforest. “The truth is more exotic,” he explains. “I think the fact that people do have such a widespread knowledge and that they’re living on top of their pharmacy is more exotic than trekking off into the jungle.”

Published in Americas Magazine by Chris Hardman

Low-tech Prescription for Chagas

| ChrisHardmanWriter

CHAGAS DISEASE is a serious and sometimes deadly infection that affects 16-18 million people throughout the Americas. What if there were a simple and inexpensive way to prevent transmission? Rockefeller University and Columbia University Professor Joel E. Cohen and Ricardo Gürtler from the University of Buenos Aires say there is, and they have the scientific data to prove it. Cohen and Gürtler are combining their expertise in applied mathematics and tropical infectious diseases to develop mathematical models to solve health problems.

According to the World Health Organization, Chagas disease is endemic to 21 countries in the Americas, where 100 million people are at risk of contracting the disease. The infection is life-long and in its most severe form can lead to heart failure. Humans get the disease from a parasite named Trypanosoma cruzi. The parasite is transmitted to humans through an infected blood transfusion or through the feces of the blood-sucking reduvid bug, locally known as “kissing” bugs, “cone-nosed” bugs, vinchuca, or barbeiro

Cohen and Gürtler set out to learn how the parasite spreads in rural households. They created a mathematical model based on a decade of data from three rural villages in Northwest Argentina. The first model of its kind, it processes data from household populations of bugs, parasites and their relationship to the numbers of humans, chickens, and dogs living within a household.

The results show that transmission follows a seasonal pattern based on what animals live in the house at what time. The cycle begins in the spring when humans, dogs, and chickens all sleep inside together — a safeguard against chicken theft or predation. The bugs also live inside and they feast on the chickens finding them to be an ideal source of a blood meal. Although chickens can’t be infected with the parasite, their presence in the household increases the bug population that peaks in the summer when the chickens are usually moved outside. The bugs then turn to the dogs as their secondary choice for a blood meal. Not only are the dogs much more infectious than humans, but they are also twice as likely to be chosen for a meal as humans.

Based on this data, Cohen and Gürtler’s mathematical model predicts that letting dogs sleep outside could almost eliminate the transmission of infection —  their official recommendation is to move both dogs and chickens to an outbuilding and keep them out of the bedroom.

“It is important to emphasize that the high technology approach to the control of infectious disease has left this disease behind,” Cohen says. “The problem is that the people who have [Chagas] are poor. There is very little prospect of a pharmaceutical company recouping the research costs required to save the 16 to 20 million people who are infected with this disease. What our work does is give the people who are affected the possibility of improving their health by their own efforts.”

A simple solution such as keeping animals out of the sleeping area is practical for all income levels.  “The ingredient here is knowledge rather than high technology.”

Cohen and Gürtler think a similar approach could help understand how other diseases, such as leishmaniasis and malaria, are related to the presence of animals in the household. They believe that the mathematical model will lead to other low-tech solutions for common health problems found in rural areas.

“We think that there are a lot of problems in developing countries where solutions don’t have to come from high-tech or from outside,” Cohen says. “I do think there is a place for the ecological approach for the prevention of disease.”

—Chris Hardman

Published in Americas magazine

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