Where No Man Has Ever Been

Universities can arrange classes for credit to hold research projects on our island. Over 16 scientists from more than ten universities and foundations around the world have already visited our island and have stated in numerous scientific documents that they would like to further study the untouched rainforests of Isla Magdalena if trails into the interior were made available. Savage Jungle has labored for months with different teams of workers making a trail into the thick interior where no man has ever been. Cutting a trail in the interior is more difficult than it might seem. Every cubic inch of the wall of jungle and bamboo has to be carefully cut out before one step can be taken.

A Priceless Reserve

The biodiversity is completely different in the interior than on the shore and no scientist has ever studied this area. This is an excellent area for scientists from around the world to explore, now that the laborious work has been completed that allows the scientists access. The island of Magdalena is of particular interest to scientists from around the world. "This reserve is priceless," says botanist Howie Brounstein, because it is the last of the untouched rainforests on the entire planet earth. It also provides a place for the "study of the Southern temperate rain forest, and rain forests in general." That is why he and many other scientists believe it is so important to preserve it. Many scientists have already visited our island, and many others would like to. Several studies have been conducted of our island by groups of scientists from around the world supported by their various organizations that include The US Forest Service, The Universidad Austral de Chile Instituto de Zoologia, University Nac. Cordoba (Argentina), Evergreen State University, University of Wyoming, The Fundacion Lahuen, The Sierra Biodiversity Institute, and C&W Herbs Inc.

Many Species Not Found in Botanical Texts

Botanist Howie Brounstein, during his visit, recorded 66 species of plants near the shoreline (not in the interior) including many not found in botanical texts. He told us that "there is more potential for new discoveries of undocumented species on Isla Magdalena than any other place in the world." When questioned about this sensational claim, he responded that Isla Magdalena is the last rainforest in the world that "has not been overrun by scientists as has Belize and the Amazon rainforests" of Peru and Brazil.

Perhaps in the inaccessible interior of this island where man has never been lies the cure to cancer. As Time magazine put it, "Does a cure for cancer reside in a dart frog from Latin America?" Hidden within the rainforests of Isla Magdalena are nature's inventions of chemical compounds that can be synthetically reproduced in factories once discovered in the rainforest. As explained in an important article entitled "Nature's Gifts: The Hidden Medicine Chest":

"There could be vast untapped wealth in these rainforests: Many people mistakenly believe the natural world has nothing left to offer us in the way of new medicines. This could not be further from the truth. Mother Nature has been creating weird and wonderful chemicals for more than 3 billion years, and we're only beginning to sift through these hidden treasures. New technologies enable us to find, analyze and manipulate molecules as never before. While today's laboratory scientists can synthesize new molecules from scratch at a pace unimaginable just a few decades back, promising compounds produced by nature's most creative creatures increasingly provide the optimum starting points. Time and again, we find that plants and animals make strange molecules that chemists would never devise in their wildest dreams (and chemists do dream of chemicals in their wildest dreams). For example, researchers could not have invented the anticancer compound Taxol, taken from the Pacific yew tree. It is too fiendishly complex a chemical structure, says chemist Gordon Cragg, of the U.S. National Cancer Institute.... Every species everywhere has the potential to teach us something new. How tragic then that just as innovative technologies give us the ability to take advantage of natural compounds as never before, we continue to threaten [species]....The European leech, source of a new blood thinner, was almost wiped out. The same is true of poison dart frogs, producers of many intriguing chemicals. Tropical cone snails and sponges, known to harbor analgesic and anticancer compounds . . . are endangered."

A diversity of frogs are found on Isla Magdalena.

"There could be vast untapped wealth in these rainforests."

—Mark Plotkin, Ph.D., Ethnobotanist

The Natural Resources Defense Council's Rainforest Book: How You Can Save the World's Rainforests, calls the rainforest "a fantastic medicine cabinet" with plants that contain ingredients essential to "antibiotics, pain killers, heart drugs and hormones" of the "3,000 plants" identified as having cancer fighting properties," it continues, "70 percent of them are native to the rainforest."

Scientists Hang by Ropes 120 Feet Up in the Canopy

The author of Medicine Quest describes an almost desperate search in the rainforests of the world for new medicines:

"For almost twenty years I've been combing the remote corners of the Amazon jungle searching for plants that heal. I am an ethnobotanist—a plant hunter...on the trail of natural compounds that can treat diseases for which modern medicine has no cure. For all those involved—ethnobotanists, marine biologists, chemists, physicians...this is a quest powered by the desperation of the ill and the compassion of those who would cure them...Western medicine still depends on plants and animals—our hospitals, pharmacies, and medicine chests brim with drugs derived from nature...An electrifying renaissance is well under way as we comb the far corners of the planet for healing compounds. Within the course of the past decade, this quest has gone from being a marginal exercise to a mainstream concern. Mother Nature has been devising extraordinary chemicals for more than 3.5 billion years, and new technologies increasingly facilitate our ability to discover, study, manipulate, and use these compounds as never before. The best evidence: during the last five years, most major pharmaceutical companies have launched new programs to find, isolate, analyze, and develop these medicines...At the dawn of the twenty-first century, scientists hang by slender nylon ropes in rain forest canopies 120 feet above the forest floor, collecting undocumented species..."