Abstract:
A HUNDRED FEET IN THE AIR, A NETWORK OF ROPE AND CABLK BRIDGES CRISSCROSSES the 30,000-acre Falealupo Preserve in westernmost Samoa. From the fern- and orchid-rich canopy bikers look up to see cloud-ringed Mount Sili Sili, whicb juts 6,800 feet into the air. The preserve has one of only nine such aerial rain forest walkways in the world. That it exists at all can be credited to a resourceful scientist named Paul Cox. Cux, wbo has a doctorate in biology from Harvard, became persuaded that Samoa's jungle contained rare botanicals of potential use against AIDS and cancer. To protect them. Cox had to engage in some pretty unscientific behavior—such as letting himself be made a god. Thirty-four native chiefs insisted he accept the name of the Samoan war goddess, Nafanua. They meant it as an honor, and Cox couldn't very well say no. His scheme for saving flora depended on his rapport witb the chiefs. He admits, though, that he worried about committing the cardinal sin of anthropology: As a fan of Joseph Conrad s novels, he feared he might be just one more white guy succumbing to heat and his own hubris. Cox, 49, might have lived a less colorful life had he not lost his mother to breast cancer in 1984. The trauma inspired him to take a leave from his post as a botany professor at Brigham Young University and to return to Samoa, where he'd lived as a missionary during college. With his fluency in the Samoan language and his knowledge of plants, he embarked on an experiment in ethnobotany (the study of the relationship between plants and cultures). Working with Falealupo's native healers, he determined that bark from the indigenous mámala plant, used to treat everything from incontinence to hepatitis, should be screened for antiviral properties. He sent samples to the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md.
