ABSTRACT
The ecological crisis facing the world’s tropical rainforests has helped to change the science of economic botany. This chapter presents a few of the ways in which the Institute of Economic Botany (IEB) of the New York Botanical Garden is addressing these issues through the sciences of economic botany and ethnobotany. The IEB has been carrying out a series of experiments in quantitative ethnobotany designed to show the extent to which indigenous peoples use the Amazon rainforest. A strong argument for the conservation of the Amazon rainforest can be made purely by showing the worldwide use that is being made of species from the region. Relatively few Amazonian woods reach the international market, consequently, the few species that are preferred tend to be badly overharvested. The wood of the species contains the essential oil linalol which is extracted by steam distillation of the wood.
