If the salesian priest Edmund Szeliga, who arrived in Peru from his native Poland back in 1930, was asked what impressed him the most about this country, he would probable say: ITS AMAZING BIODIVERSITY.

Peru is truly a privileged country, given its wealth of flora and fauna and its large mining deposits. Suffice is to say that it has 84 wildlife zones of the 104 in the planet; 28 kinds of climate of the 32 that exist in the world; 262 river basins; 12,000 Andean lakes and lagoons; hydrothermal wells with temperatures as high as 100ºC; Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, which is shared with Bolivia. It also has canyons as deep as those of Colca and Cotahuasi in Arequipa, south of Peru, as well as more than 820,000 km2 of forests, mainly in the Amazon region.

With such an impressive biodiversity, what did Father Szeliga find the most interesting in this beautiful country with such varied climates, landscapes, cultures and impressive archaeological ruins? Undoubtedly, THE GREAT WEALTH OF ITS MEDICINAL FLORA.

It is a well-known fact that in pre-colombian times, species that are considered important for contemporary diets were cultivated, such as potatoes, squash, pumpkins, corn, tomatoes, beans, peanuts and so on. However, little is known about the mysterious 50% of the 50,000 or more vegetal species that could have medicinal applications.

As regards TRADITIONAL ANDEAN-AMAZON MEDICINE, it was through the therapeutic practices of native men that high levels of medical culture have been achieved, as scientifically proved by research work on the active principles of the plants used empirically since ancient times, orally passed on from one generation to another.