ABSTRACT
The wilderness can be harsh. Ruggedness of the terrain is compounded by threats posed by its inhabitants. In a tropical forest, for example, we can be bitten by a snake, stung by an insect or poisoned by a seemingly edible mushroom. Away from the comfort and artificial surroundings of the modern human society, we are thrown back to the days when we were still living as savages, albeit with the help of modern tools which we bring with us. Back in the wilderness, we are surrounded by a habitat in which, as the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson [1] puts, ‘nature, red in tooth and claw’ prevails. The richness of biodiversity is the result of complex
relationships among various organisms, where each species-prey and predator alike-thrives according to its niche. Obvious evidence of these relationships includes food chains and food webs, where animals, plants and microorganisms are eaters or eaten. Simply put, the claw and tooth of the predator are red from the blood of its prey. Leading up to this act, the predator may lure its prey with bait under the guise of food or other attractions, sting it with venom or use various means to trap and kill it. On its part, the prey can be elusive, through camouflage or other means of fooling the predator, such as mimicking something the predator hates or fears, or simply through a quick escape. When cornered by the predator, the prey fights it off with defensive weapons. The bee uses its venomous sting to defend against larger predators. The pufferfish harbours bacteria which produce highly poisonous toxin to help it to ward off its predators, thereby gaining the common benefit of survival. Many South American frogs have brilliant, complex colours to warn off their predators and have toxic secretions on their skins to fight those which are bold enough to attack them. These few examples show how predators and prey are locked in continuous struggles, from which the fitter ones survive and the balance of nature emerges. The harsh wilderness is evident in other ways besides hunting and being hunted. Infectious diseases are caused by microbes, many of which are transmitted by animals. Other infectious diseases are
carried by air, water or food. The pathogens range from viruses and bacteria to parasitic protozoa and worms of various kinds. The route of infection can be directly from the air we breathe, like the influenza virus. Other pathogens go through intricate life cycles, for example, schistosomes or blood flukes, which infect us through skin penetration when we take a dip in water where schistosome-infected snails live. More bizarre examples are found in the insect world, where, for example, a parasitic wasp lays an egg in a ladybird, which turns into a ‘zombie’, protecting the larva as it develops and eats the victim from inside. These examples illustrate the harshness of the wilderness in various ways and also show that, taken in the broad sense, it is not just located in wild forests or remote savannahs; it is in the midst of our civilization in the form of threats from infectious diseases and the fragile environment. 1.2 Wilderness Is HealingThe wilderness is not always harsh. Many species share a habitat without harming each other. Indeed, two or more species can thrive through helping one another. For example, Rhizobium bacteria live in root nodules of leguminous plants and help to fix nitrogen, that is, turns nitrogen from the atmosphere into nutrients for the plants, while it gains other nutrients and benefits from the plants-a mode of living together known as symbiosis. In some cases, the relationship becomes so close that the two organisms merge into one (the chloroplast, an essential component of plant cells responsible for photosynthesis, and the mitochondria, a component of both plant and animal cells responsible for generation and utilization of energy, were once microbes which became closely symbiotic with cells of early eukaryotic organisms, until they eventually merged together into single organisms) [2]. The chloroplast helps to build nutrients from carbon dioxide and water with sunlight as the energy source, and the mitochondria serves as the powerhouse of the cell by burning sugar to provide energy. Multitudes of bacteria on our skin and in our guts are also living in a symbiotic relationship with us. Among other functions, they help to digest and decompose our foodstuffs and help us to defend against unwanted infectious pathogens. In return, they receive food and habitation from us. Cultivation of a
plant by humans or domestication of animals can also be considered as a form of symbiosis, albeit one planned by humans and not arising spontaneously by natural selection. From the wilderness therefore emerged agriculture and other forms of domestication as adoption of selective species for our benefit. Despite the threats of the wilderness in various forms, it is also a source of our well-being, not only in a material, but also in a spiritual way. We often yearn to be back with nature, away from artificial surroundings of cities or villages. In the words of the author Henry David Thoreau, ‘I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows’ [3]. Being back with nature refreshes our spirit, perhaps due to the fact that over the course of our long evolution, humans have only recently been divorced from nature to live in civilizations. Our spirit is therefore revived when we go back to our roots, even occasionally. One of the great benefits of the wilderness is the fact that it is the source of various remedies for illnesses past and present, from the ancient practitioners of Chinese medicine to the traditional diviner-healers of Africa. Countless herbal products are included in the pharmacopoeia of traditional or alternative medicine. Many others are included in the list of modern drugs with proven efficacies. A few of them are: • Artemisinin, from sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua), long used in China as an antihelmintic and now chemically
processed to various derivatives with high efficacy against malaria • Aspirin, from willow bark, prescribed for fever and aches since ancient times, now also used to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke • Caffeine, from coffee, tea and other plants, used as a stimulant by many cultures over the ages • Digoxin, from the foxglove plant, traditionally used to treat various heart conditions but also known to have many adverse effects • Morphine, a powerful analgesic and narcotic from the opium poppy, the use of which predates history • Papain, a protein-digesting enzyme from the skin of the raw papaya fruit, used as a digestive aid
Knowledge of uses for these and other agents has been accumulated over many years, indeed in many cases over millennia, through traditional wisdom passed through the generations [4-6]. The science of ethnopharmacy has developed around the use of traditional drugs by ethnic groups and integration with modern knowledge about drugs and their actions. It is very useful for an understanding of how local cultures utilize materials from their ecosystems to maintain health and fight illnesses. Moreover, it is a valuable source of information in the search for new drugs for global use, as history has shown. In the investigation of the use of traditional medicines as modern drugs, however, safety should be a main concern, since many of them may have toxic or unwanted side effects. While some medicinal plants are now cultivated for our use, those which remain in the wilderness are also great potential resources. Many traditional herbal drugs contain ingredients from the wild, often because they cannot be domesticated easily or simply from expediency. Moderate harvesting of medicinal products from nature, as in the practice of traditional societies, does not disturb the balance of nature irreversibly. However, unlimited exploitation without replenishing the sources results in an unsustainable situation which jeopardizes the survival of the exploited species and threatens natural biodiversity. An example is licorice, an Asian plant
used for pain relief as well as a flavouring agent, which is threatened from overharvesting and habitat destruction. Traditional belief in medicinal properties of such animal parts as rhinoceros horns and tiger bones, which has not been supported by scientific evidence, has also contributed seriously to the threats of extinction of these species. 1.3 We Are Living in a Molecular WildernessApart from wild nature, which can be harsh or healing, there is another wilderness in which all of us live no matter where we are. Furthermore, this basic wilderness reflects the harsh and healing aspects of wild nature, and its understanding can point the way to our future development. The wilderness is not necessarily displayed in wild surroundings full of untamed creatures. Nor is it an uncontrolled state of living, which most people have surpassed. There is a deeper roughness which still stays with us as the human society moves forward in its civilization, with all its technological progress. It comes from inside us and from our relationship with nature. Its roots are in the molecules of which we are made-it is the molecular wilderness. As living beings, we respond to products of nature from consumption, contact or otherwise. We interact constantly with organisms around us. Some indeed come from distant wild areas, through their mobility or aided by wind and water, but most are common living beings with which we are familiar. Our interaction with nature, be it through products or organisms, is set by biological rules with molecular mechanisms at their roots. Importantly, the genetic traits of all organisms, including us, contain the molecular features which arose long before the rise of human civilization. The molecular basis of our life processes, as for all living beings, is the legacy of our past ecosystem. As the noted molecular biologist Jacques Monod said, ‘. . . every living being is also a fossil. Within it, all the way down to the microscopic structure of its proteins, it bears the traces if not the stigmata of its ancestry’ [7]. Although we may seem to have control over our destiny in our controlled environment, it is still a haphazard world down there. No matter where we are, we are still living in a molecular wilderness, both through genetic determination and environmental conditions.
