Ethnopharmacology in Australia and Oceania

Abstract

"Bioprospecting has gained much recent popular attention, particularly spurred by the apocryphal image of adventurous ethnobotanists penetrating at considerable peril the darkest recesses of the jungle at the behest of rich pharmaceutical firms". (Cox, 2008, p. 270) As Cox (2008) describes above, the discipline of bioprospecting often evokes images of brilliant but erratic ethnopharmacologists, as portrayed, for example, by Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones) and Sean Connery (Medicine Man); battling through thick jungles or mountainous terrain in search of an infallible panacea, used for millennia by indigenous people. However, by contrast with the Amazonian rainforest or the Himalayas, the Australian landmass is predominantly arid with deserts and temperate grasslands predominating. Such arid flat landscapes are where most of the recorded ethnopharmacologically significant Australian plants are found. Selective pressures in this geographically isolated arid land have nonetheless produced a higher proportion of total endemic flora, by comparison with the tropical or wet temperate islands of Oceania or indeed the rest of the world. Evolutionary biologists suggest that during prehistoric cycles of aridity, Australia's rich assortment of high secondary metabolite yielding flora emerged. This flora includes commercially important essential oil yielding species, such as 'Eucalyptus', 'Melaleuca' and 'Leptospermum' spp. Specific evolutionary advantages conferred on plants by characteristic secondary metabolites remain contentious. However, their contribution to the 'materia medica' of prehistoric Aboriginal people is beyond doubt.