Mark Plotkin is an ethnobotanist who tells us that the most endangered speicies in the Amazon Rainforest is the isolated and uncontacted indigenous tribes. In this presentation, he describes just a few examples of the medicinal advancements the resources of the rainforest can provide. The people that know these resources the best and the people who know nature itself best are those that inhabit the earth's rainforest. Plotkin says that these tribes are a part of "preliterate societies" and that "every time a Shaman dies it's as if a library has been burned down." The biodiversity among the earth's rainforest is so vast that it would take decades and maybe even centuries to discover all of its secrets. Unfortunately, these areas are being destroyed before most scientists even get a chance to walk through them. The map below shows Cahuinarí National Park and Río Puré National park which according to Plotkin "is home to several groups of isolated and uncontacted people." There is increased trade and transport in Putumayo, illegal gold mining in the north and from western Brazil, increased commercial hunting and fishing, illegal logging from the south and drug smugglers are moving through the park and trying to get into Brazil.