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Proyecto Visión 21

Unexpected lessons from desert inhabitants and monarch butterflies

Francisco Miraval

Do you want to learn how to survive on Mars? Don’t ask NASA, but ask the inhabitants of the Atacama Desert, in Chile. Do you want to know which plant to eat to fight parasites? Don’t ask a doctor, but watch what the monarch butterfly does.

At a recent presentation at TED Talks, Belgium artist Angelo Vermeulen explained that one of the best ways to learn how to survive in an unforgiven and challenging environment, such as Mars, is to learn from those native peoples who for millennia have been living in some of the most inhospitable places on earth.

According to Vermeulen, that’s precisely what NASA is doing in the Atacama Desert in Chile, a place so remote and dry that resembles Mars, so much so, that NASA frequently tests equipment in that area, including prototypes of spacesuits, vehicles, and shelters that one day may be used on Mars.

In that remote region of Chile, advanced technology that one day will help to establish a permanent human colony on another planet meets a millenary tradition about how to carefully use the few resources you may have so you can survive even in the most hostile environment.

So, it seems that the Atacamenos (as the natives of that area of Chile are known) are as important for our trip to Mars as the NASA scientists who will be in charge of that mission.

Another TED speaker, Jaap De Roode, of the Biology Department at Emory University, spoke about the results of more than ten years of studying the monarch butterflies. He said that a high percentage of those butterflies, when infected by a certain parasite, will eat from plants with medicinal properties.

The butterflies can’t get rid of the parasites, but the medicine they ingest will restore their help to the point they will complete their life cycle and, when they lay their eggs, those butterflies usually put the eggs on the “medicinal” plants, so the next generation of butterflies grows eating medicine.

In other words, this insect, whose tiny brain is powerful enough to guide the butterfly to migration of thousands of miles, can modify its diet if that’s good for its help and can also “think” ahead about the health of the next generation. We possess bigger brains, but I am not sure we have learned those two lessons.

I must confess I never thought about asking Atacamenos help to go to Mars or about watching butterflies to learn about healthy diets. But after listening to the highly informative presentations by Vermeulen and by De Roode, it is undeniable clear that both Natives Chileans and monarch butterflies have important lessons to teach us.

I wonder in how many more unexpected places of nature and traditions there are other important lessons for our present and for our future. I also wonder if, recognizing our need for those lessons, we will know what to ask and we will be humble enough to receive the teaching with open hearts and minds.

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