In Honor of World Nature Conservation Day, Jaguar Health Announces Planting of More Than 1.1 Million Trees in Peruvian Amazon
Activities support sustainable supply of Jaguar’s botanical drug crofelemer, the active ingredient in the company’s FDA-approved human drug Mytesi® and FDA conditionally approved animal drug Canalevia®-CA1
SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 27, 2023 / Jaguar Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAGX) (“Jaguar”), in honor of World Nature Conservation Day, July 28th, announced that Jaguar, together with its predecessor companies, and working with Indigenous communities, has successfully planted more than 1.1 million trees in the Peruvian Amazon since 1992. This effort has been part of the company’s commitment to biocultural conservation in tropical forest ecosystems and the development of new therapeutics from rainforest plants.
Croton lechleri Tree
“On July 28th each year the global conservation community seeks to raise awareness of the importance of conserving and protecting the Earth’s natural resources,” said Steve King, PhD, Jaguar’s Chief Sustainable Supply, Ethnobotanical Research, and Intellectual Property (IP) Officer, who has been conducting research in the Amazon and other tropical forests for more than 40 years. “Each year, the impact of climate change poses more severe challenges to greater numbers of people across the globe. Reforestation programs around the world are crucial to help mitigate global warming, a major factor influencing climate change around the world. Humanity’s well-being – now and into the future – is dependent on nature for clean water, food, fuel, healthy air, and often for important medicines. Many new medical treatments have resulted from compounds discovered in Earth’s oceans and from plants in Earth’s forests, and many of these have been discovered through leads based on the knowledge from Indigenous cultures who have a long history of use of plants and fungi in healing. We are grateful to these peoples both for their wisdom and for their dedication to the conservation and sustainable management of the ecosystems that are essential to planetary health.”
Jaguar company Napo Pharmaceuticals (Napo) has been working on the long-term sustainable management of the Amazonian Dragons blood tree, or “sangre de drago” (Croton lechleri), from which crofelemer, the active pharmaceutical ingredient in the Jaguar’s FDA-approved oral botanical drug, is extracted and purified. Since 1992, key Napo partners have been reforesting Dragons blood trees in Peru in collaboration with local communities and forestry departments.
More than 1.1 million trees have been planted by Jaguar and its predecessor companies in the Central and Northern Peruvian rainforest, a program that is continuing daily in partnership with Indigenous and local communities. Planted in more than 30 locations, these trees are a part of mixed agroforestry systems, which seek to mimic the natural diversity of Amazonian tropical forests, providing habitat for animals, birds, insects, and plants, which are the foundation of biologically diverse, complex, resilient, and sustainable tropical forest ecosystems. The Dragons blood tree is a rapidly growing, widespread pioneer tree species that is common in tropical forests of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. There is extensive natural regeneration of this tree in these countries and Jaguar’s reforestation work is part of the overall sustainable harvesting and management work of company and its partners.
The benefits provided to people who collect and work on Dragons blood tree reforestation have reached an estimated 100,000 people since 1992, a number which includes the families of the people directly involved with this ongoing program. The income that is provided to women, men, and families as part of this process also creates incentives for conserving and utilizing, in a sustainable manner, the tropical forests in which they live. Local and Indigenous communities also benefit from their knowledge and expertise of the plant medicines they can harvest and utilize from their forest ecosystems, to improve health outcomes and livelihoods. There is also a well-documented loss of languages and associated cultural knowledge about plants and traditional management techniques, and this loss can slowly be reversed when people see tangible benefits from maintaining their cultural knowledge and transmitting it to younger generations in the hope that it will be seen as essential to their future.
“Our teams and colleagues are proud to be promoting the long-term sustainable management of Dragons blood over the past 31 years, working directly with Indigenous communities and local populations. We have seen and been told by numerous people and communities that this reforestation work and the fair trade of Croton lechleri latex has and continues to provide important economic benefit that provides alternatives to logging and deforestation,” said Mario Pariona Fonseca, MS, forestry, a community social development expert of the Corporacion Forestal Amazonico, who has been working with Napo colleagues on the sustainable management and harvest of Dragons blood since 1998.
“In many areas, this reforestation work is registered, or is in the process of registration, in the Peruvian National Registration of Reforestation, which assures that the appropriate steps are taken to document the sustainable management of forests in Peru for this and other species of plants that are part of commerce in Peru,” said Kodix Garcia Valles, General Manager of Probos L&CH, a key long-term collaborating partner with Napo since 1996.
“In a number of locations, the people planting Croton trees and receiving direct economic benefit for their families are women who live in a diverse and widespread network of relatively remote Indigenous villages, and we are immensely grateful to them for their ongoing involvement and expertise,” said Dr. King.
About Jaguar Health, Napo Therapeutics & Jaguar Animal Health
Jaguar Health is a commercial stage pharmaceuticals company focused on developing novel, plant-based, sustainably derived prescription medicines for people and animals with GI distress, including chronic, debilitating diarrhea. Our crofelemer drug product candidate is the subject of the OnTarget study, an ongoing pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial for prophylaxis of diarrhea in adult cancer patients receiving targeted therapy. Jaguar Health is the majority shareholder of Napo Therapeutics S.p.A. (f/k/a Napo EU S.p.A.), an Italian corporation established by Jaguar Health in Milan, Italy in 2021 that focuses on expanding crofelemer access in Europe. Jaguar Animal Health is a tradename of Jaguar Health.
For more information about Jaguar Health, please visit https://jaguar.health. For more information about Napo Therapeutics, visit napotherapeutics.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release constitute “forward-looking statements.” In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “aim,” “anticipate,” “could,” “intend,” “target,” “project,” “contemplate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential” or “continue” or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions. The forward-looking statements in this release are only predictions. Jaguar has based these forward-looking statements largely on its current expectations and projections about future events. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified and some of which are beyond Jaguar’s control. Except as required by applicable law, Jaguar does not plan to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein, whether as a result of any new information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise.
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SOURCE: Jaguar Health, Inc.
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