Mario Christian Meyer
Encyclopedia
Mario Christian Meyer (born 4 June 1953) is a Swiss
-Brazil
ian doctor and advocate for the sustainable development of the Amazonia
and preservation of its indigenous cultural heritage.
, Argentina. His father, Hermann Meyer, a Swiss polytechnics engineer specializing in agronomy, became a fazendeiro (large plantation farmer), first in Argentina, in the early 1930s, then in Brazil in 1954. His mother, Anne Camille Blanc de Corbières Meyer, was a Swiss structural engineer. The young Meyer spent his first months in Salta, where his father had established a Hacienda
and an olive oil production plant. Because of Peronism
, with its nationalism and isolationism
, his family lost everything and, in 1954, consequently moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In the book Embracing Amazonia published in Brazil, 2008, Eliana Spengler (Giant of Ecology Award coordinator) talks about Meyer’s childhood and youth:
The stories of Brazilian authors Jose de Alencar
, Castro Alves
and Machado de Assis fueled Meyer's love of the Amazon, while reading Montaigne
's Bon sauvage, Rousseau
's État de Nature and Locke
's concepts of empiricism and tabula rasa
directed his thoughts on the nature of human development.
Later in life, Meyer experienced an Índios
initiation rite, an experience that sealed his commitment to the Amazonian cause.
Meyer studied medicine, specializing in Developmental Neuropsychology and Child Psychiatry. He went on to teach at the Sorbonne
in Paris. His thesis Apprentissage de la langue maternelle écrite: étude sur des populations autochtones dites socio-culturellement défavorisées dans une approche interdisciplinaire,
prefaced by Prof. Dr. Julian de Ajuriaguerra
of the Collège de France
, published by UNESCO
, examined the problems of underprivileged indigenous populations in learning written language. This work for UNESCO has induced Prof. Dr. Meyer to study the contribution of western sciences (neuropsychiatry
, neurolinguistics
, neuropsychology
, psychomotricity, etc.) to the approach of learning disabilities occurring with illiteracy in the developing countries. This official mission led him into the heart of the Amazonian Rainforest
for the first time, where he undertook an exhaustive case study about the different forms of graphic representations of the written language used by the Amerindians in their pictograms, ideograms, petroglyphs and body paintings (e.g. Genipapo – Genipa americana
, Urucu – Bixa orellana), obtained using plant pigments, where he discovered the power of their active ingredients. Meyer evolved from this work to a general effort to promote the value of indigenous ancestral knowledge and to preserve their natural environment (the Amazon).
In 1989, Meyer was made Fellow of the Paris Society of Medicine
(in French Société de Médecine de Paris), founded on the “2 Germinal
year IV” (French Revolutionary calendar, i.e. 22 March 1796), originating from the Société Royale de Médecine founded in 1730. There, he presented his works on Amazônia, which were to give birth to new medicines.
His missions in the Amazon rainforest in close contact with the « People of Nature », the Índios gave him a new conception of Man-Nature interaction. They lead him to combine his expertise in neuropsychology in the field of linguistic and cultural diversity
with his experience in biological diversity and its preservation by biotechnologies.
This association allowed him to fight for the transformation of the Amazonian biodiversity and medicinal plants into a truly genuine pharmacology
benefiting both Amazônia and the Western world.
Thus, from 1992 Prof. Dr. Meyer participated as an official member of the State of Amazonas delegation in the UN Earth Summit
Rio 92.
It is in this context that, in 1994, he coordinated on Brazilian territory – after a due hand-over by the French Ambassador in Brasília – the first Ministerial « mission for biotechnology
to valorize biodiversity » ever to be organized between France and the State of Amazonas.
This mission, which had been initiated in 1993 by the French Minister of Research and Space Hubert Curien
(via the National Programme of Biotechnologies, directed by Prof. Dr. Daniel Thomas), was carried out under the auspices of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the active involvement of the Governor of the State of Amazonas.
In 1994, Meyer appeared as a special delegate from Brazil to the UNESCO’s World Symposium on Literacy in order to present his new approach merging linguistic abilities and biodiversity know how.
In 1999, Dr. Meyer was appointed by UNESCO to write a report on the means to consider in order to establish a “bridge of equitable communication and cooperation” between the Amazonian Amerindians and their traditional knowledge, on the one hand, and the Western world and its modern Culture, on the other hand. The bottom line was to set up the appropriate tools and create the necessary procedures for such a cooperation to be made possible, taking into account the specificity of cultural diversity, the way both these cultures function, and the pragmatic instruments of cooperation.
Since then, he has gone on to found PISAD: Programme International de Sauvegarde de l’Amazônia, Mata Atlântica et des Amérindiens pour le Développement Durable [International Program to Safeguard Amazônia, the Mata Atlântica and the Amerindians for Sustainable Development], a humanist and non-profit organization. To implement it, he has created a "platform of fair and equitable dialogue – a bridge – between preserved Índios and western scientists" to valorize the ancestral knowledge of the Índios and the Amazonian biodiversity
. Originally, Meyer set up an operational concept and methodology regarding the psycho-cultural revitalization of endangered Amerindian knowledge which he had pioneered as Cogni'Índios.
), France.
UNESCO’s Participation Programme entitled "Amerindian Communication and Sustainable Economic Development Programme for a Culture of Peace in Brazilian Amazônia" (00 BRA 603), which Meyer managed from 1999 to 2003, has been a central element of his work and a starting point for his further action.
In the last years, Meyer has been concentrating his activities on the innovative transfer of the “plant milking technology” to an Índios’ community in the virgin rainforest: this is a unique example in recent history of an actual biotechnology transfer to Amerindians.
He is now focusing his work on the goal-achievement methodology of his original research and development programme to ensure a functional and active link between the Índios ancestral knowledge and Scientist’s advanced biotechnology.
Video
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
-Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian doctor and advocate for the sustainable development of the Amazonia
Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...
and preservation of its indigenous cultural heritage.
Early life
Meyer was born on 4 June 1953 in SaltaSalta
Salta is a city in northwestern Argentina and the capital city of the Salta Province. Along with its metropolitan area, it has a population of 464,678 inhabitants as of the , making it Argentina's eighth largest city.-Overview:...
, Argentina. His father, Hermann Meyer, a Swiss polytechnics engineer specializing in agronomy, became a fazendeiro (large plantation farmer), first in Argentina, in the early 1930s, then in Brazil in 1954. His mother, Anne Camille Blanc de Corbières Meyer, was a Swiss structural engineer. The young Meyer spent his first months in Salta, where his father had established a Hacienda
Hacienda
Hacienda is a Spanish word for an estate. Some haciendas were plantations, mines, or even business factories. Many haciendas combined these productive activities...
and an olive oil production plant. Because of Peronism
Peronism
Peronism , or Justicialism , is an Argentine political movement based on the programmes associated with former President Juan Perón and his second wife, Eva Perón...
, with its nationalism and isolationism
Isolationism
Isolationism is the policy or doctrine of isolating one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, etc., seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement and remain at peace by...
, his family lost everything and, in 1954, consequently moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In the book Embracing Amazonia published in Brazil, 2008, Eliana Spengler (Giant of Ecology Award coordinator) talks about Meyer’s childhood and youth:
- "… In his early years, he elected his father's library as his shelter; there he nourished his young mind and imagination reading books by classical Brazilian writers about Amazonian rainforest and Índios. Later, through encyclopaedias, he developed personal approaches to his numerous questions about the meaning of life ..."
The stories of Brazilian authors Jose de Alencar
José de Alencar
José Martiniano de Alencar was a Brazilian lawyer, politician, orator, novelist and dramatist. He is one of the most famous writers of the first generation of Brazilian Romanticism, writing historical, regionalist and Indianist romances — being the most famous The Guarani...
, Castro Alves
Castro Alves
Antônio Frederico de Castro Alves was a Brazilian poet and playwright, famous for his Abolitionist and Republican poems...
and Machado de Assis fueled Meyer's love of the Amazon, while reading Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592, was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism...
's Bon sauvage, Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
's État de Nature and Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
's concepts of empiricism and tabula rasa
Tabula rasa
Tabula rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects...
directed his thoughts on the nature of human development.
Later in life, Meyer experienced an Índios
Indigenous peoples in Brazil
The Indigenous peoples in Brazil comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who inhabited the country prior to the European invasion around 1500...
initiation rite, an experience that sealed his commitment to the Amazonian cause.
Career
Early careerMeyer studied medicine, specializing in Developmental Neuropsychology and Child Psychiatry. He went on to teach at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
in Paris. His thesis Apprentissage de la langue maternelle écrite: étude sur des populations autochtones dites socio-culturellement défavorisées dans une approche interdisciplinaire,
prefaced by Prof. Dr. Julian de Ajuriaguerra
Julian de Ajuriaguerra
Julian de Ajuriaguerra was a French Basque neuropsychiatrist and psychoanalyst of Spanish Basque origin...
of the Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
, published by UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
, examined the problems of underprivileged indigenous populations in learning written language. This work for UNESCO has induced Prof. Dr. Meyer to study the contribution of western sciences (neuropsychiatry
Neuropsychiatry
Neuropsychiatry is the branch of medicine dealing with mental disorders attributable to diseases of the nervous system. It preceded the current disciplines of psychiatry and neurology, in as much as psychiatrists and neurologists had a common training....
, neurolinguistics
Neurolinguistics
Neurolinguistics is the study of the neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language. As an interdisciplinary field, neurolinguistics draws methodology and theory from fields such as neuroscience, linguistics, cognitive science,...
, neuropsychology
Neuropsychology
Neuropsychology studies the structure and function of the brain related to specific psychological processes and behaviors. The term neuropsychology has been applied to lesion studies in humans and animals. It has also been applied to efforts to record electrical activity from individual cells in...
, psychomotricity, etc.) to the approach of learning disabilities occurring with illiteracy in the developing countries. This official mission led him into the heart of the Amazonian Rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
for the first time, where he undertook an exhaustive case study about the different forms of graphic representations of the written language used by the Amerindians in their pictograms, ideograms, petroglyphs and body paintings (e.g. Genipapo – Genipa americana
Genipa americana
Genipa americana is a species of Genipa, native to northern South America , the Caribbean and southern Mexico, growing in rainforests. It is commonly called Genipapo or Huito; the alternate name Jagua may refer to other species of Genipa as well. To the Inca, it was known as hawa or wituq...
, Urucu – Bixa orellana), obtained using plant pigments, where he discovered the power of their active ingredients. Meyer evolved from this work to a general effort to promote the value of indigenous ancestral knowledge and to preserve their natural environment (the Amazon).
In 1989, Meyer was made Fellow of the Paris Society of Medicine
Paris Society of Medicine
The Paris Society of Medicine is a medical organization based in Paris, France. Its predecessor, the Société Royale de Médecine, was founded in 1730, and the society's current incarnation was founded in 1878.- Historical background :...
(in French Société de Médecine de Paris), founded on the “2 Germinal
Germinal
Germinal is the thirteenth novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Often considered Zola's masterpiece and one of the most significant novels in the French tradition, the novel – an uncompromisingly harsh and realistic story of a coalminers' strike in northern France...
year IV” (French Revolutionary calendar, i.e. 22 March 1796), originating from the Société Royale de Médecine founded in 1730. There, he presented his works on Amazônia, which were to give birth to new medicines.
His missions in the Amazon rainforest in close contact with the « People of Nature », the Índios gave him a new conception of Man-Nature interaction. They lead him to combine his expertise in neuropsychology in the field of linguistic and cultural diversity
Cultural diversity
Cultural diversity is having different cultures respect each other's differences. It could also mean the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole...
with his experience in biological diversity and its preservation by biotechnologies.
This association allowed him to fight for the transformation of the Amazonian biodiversity and medicinal plants into a truly genuine pharmacology
Pharmacology
Pharmacology is the branch of medicine and biology concerned with the study of drug action. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function...
benefiting both Amazônia and the Western world.
Thus, from 1992 Prof. Dr. Meyer participated as an official member of the State of Amazonas delegation in the UN Earth Summit
Earth Summit
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development , also known as the Rio Summit, Rio Conference, Earth Summit was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 June to 14 June 1992.-Overview:...
Rio 92.
It is in this context that, in 1994, he coordinated on Brazilian territory – after a due hand-over by the French Ambassador in Brasília – the first Ministerial « mission for biotechnology
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
to valorize biodiversity » ever to be organized between France and the State of Amazonas.
This mission, which had been initiated in 1993 by the French Minister of Research and Space Hubert Curien
Hubert Curien
Hubert Curien was a French physicist and a key figure in European science politics, as the President of CERN , the first chairman of the European Space Agency , and second President of the Academia Europæa and a President of Fondation de France.-Biography:Born in Cornimont, Vosges in Lorraine,...
(via the National Programme of Biotechnologies, directed by Prof. Dr. Daniel Thomas), was carried out under the auspices of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the active involvement of the Governor of the State of Amazonas.
In 1994, Meyer appeared as a special delegate from Brazil to the UNESCO’s World Symposium on Literacy in order to present his new approach merging linguistic abilities and biodiversity know how.
In 1999, Dr. Meyer was appointed by UNESCO to write a report on the means to consider in order to establish a “bridge of equitable communication and cooperation” between the Amazonian Amerindians and their traditional knowledge, on the one hand, and the Western world and its modern Culture, on the other hand. The bottom line was to set up the appropriate tools and create the necessary procedures for such a cooperation to be made possible, taking into account the specificity of cultural diversity, the way both these cultures function, and the pragmatic instruments of cooperation.
Since then, he has gone on to found PISAD: Programme International de Sauvegarde de l’Amazônia, Mata Atlântica et des Amérindiens pour le Développement Durable [International Program to Safeguard Amazônia, the Mata Atlântica and the Amerindians for Sustainable Development], a humanist and non-profit organization. To implement it, he has created a "platform of fair and equitable dialogue – a bridge – between preserved Índios and western scientists" to valorize the ancestral knowledge of the Índios and the Amazonian biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
. Originally, Meyer set up an operational concept and methodology regarding the psycho-cultural revitalization of endangered Amerindian knowledge which he had pioneered as Cogni'Índios.
Recent work
Meyer is currently adapting a process for the bio-production of active ingredients contained in medicinal plants to the needs and abilities of the Índios, enabling them to manage the production of these pharmaceuticals and ensuring them economic autonomy and self-sustainable development. This bio-production is based upon the alliance between the Índios’ know-how and a green biotechnology (Plant Milking Technology) developed by INPL – Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine (National Polytechnic Institute of LorraineNational Polytechnic Institute of Lorraine
The National Polytechnic Institute of Lorraine , based in Nancy, is a French university system. It is under the Academy of Nancy and Metz.INPL is part of Nancy-Université...
), France.
UNESCO’s Participation Programme entitled "Amerindian Communication and Sustainable Economic Development Programme for a Culture of Peace in Brazilian Amazônia" (00 BRA 603), which Meyer managed from 1999 to 2003, has been a central element of his work and a starting point for his further action.
In the last years, Meyer has been concentrating his activities on the innovative transfer of the “plant milking technology” to an Índios’ community in the virgin rainforest: this is a unique example in recent history of an actual biotechnology transfer to Amerindians.
He is now focusing his work on the goal-achievement methodology of his original research and development programme to ensure a functional and active link between the Índios ancestral knowledge and Scientist’s advanced biotechnology.
Awards and recognition
For his efforts, Meyer was awarded the Brazilian prize "Gigante da Ecologia" (Giant of Ecology) in 2008.External links
Interview- Mario Christian Meyer, a Giant of Ecology, interview in Ambiente Brasil (23 April 2008) – in Portuguese
Video
- Interview with Meyer on TV Planète (part1) / (part2) (concerning the unique use of active principles from the Amazon forest, mainly psychotropic drugs, oriented to the valorization and safeguard of biodiversity and cultural diversity)
- Interview with Meyer on a Brazilian channel (part1) / (part2) (describing a programme of pragmatic alliance between Ancestral Knowledge (including Amerindian Mythology) and Modern Biotechnology aiming at Nature conservation and Self sustainable development)
- Intervention de Pr. Meyer à la conférence RECIF – TV France 3 / RECIF : intervention du Pr. Mario Christian Meyer lors de la conférence sur l'intolérance, 1990 – Approches psychanalytique et psychoculturelle de la « Différence » : source d'amour et source de haine