Tuesday, January 16, Dr. Paul Alan Cox will present an Honors Academic Forum at 10 a.m. in the Little Theatre on the BYU-Hawaii campus. The forum, sponsored by the University Honors Program will feature the topic “New Medicines from Ancient Knowledge in the Pacific Islands.”
Dr. Cox, who served an LDS mission in Samoa, is an ethnobotanist, a scientist who studies the use of plants by indegneous people. Dr. Cox is also known as “Nafanua,” one of the highest chief titles of Samoa. The title was conferred on Dr. Cox in 1989 by the Samoan people for his diligence and work in rain forest preservation.
Honored by Time Magazine as one of 11 “Heroes of Medicine” for his ongoing search for new medicines from plants, Dr. Cox was also awarded the Goldman Prize (sometimes called the “Nobel Prize” of the environment) for his efforts in preserving the Samoan rain forests. He is also the founder and chairman of Seacology, a non-profit organization created for the sole and unique purpose of preserving the environments and cultures of islands throughout the globe.
Former director and CEO of the National Tropical Botanical Gardens on Kauai, Cox received a Ph.D. in Botany from Harvard. In a talk given at a BYU devotional in Provo, Utah, he shared these thoughts about his knowledge of rainforest biology and his feelings for the Lord’s creations:
“I know far more about the workings of the tropical rain forest ecosystem now than I knew when I saw my first rain forest many years ago. Yet some of the most important things to me about the rain forest have little to do with scientific exploration.
When I walk through the Samoan rain forest, strolling through fern and moss, when I hear the gentle song of jungle birds, when I gaze on the shafts of light filtering to the forest floor from the rain forest canopy high above, I feel very deeply the Spirit of the Lord. In the rain forest I feel as though I am completely enveloped in the masterpiece of a kind and loving Creator. My understanding of a few scientific details about that forest does not reduce my admiration for the Creator. Instead, each new thing I learn serves only to increase my awe and my appreciation. When I walk in the rain forest, I feel sometimes as if I am approaching the gates of Eden.”
Dr. Cox has served as a Distinguished Professor at BYU-Hawaii, and is the author of “Nafanua: Saving the Samoan Rain Forest” and “Plants, People, and Culture: the Science of Ethnobotany.”