About the event

An illustrated talk by Keith Shawe, titled: “I don’t believe in herbal medicine”

This talk takes a fun look at this comment by his elderly next-door neighbour, covering the relevance of herbalism from ancient times to modern, with stories and links to the uses of some of the plants growing at Halsdon Nature Reserve.

About Keith Shawe

Keith has B.Sc. in Botany, a M.Sc. in plant classification and a Ph.D. on parasitic plants. During a professional career spanning 32 years, Keith has worked on international development issues in 21 countries in Africa, Asia and Central America for the British Government and many international donors. For example, he worked with a Mayan Priest doctor making a collection of plants from the forests of Belize and worked on medicinal plant conservation with traditional medicine doctors high in the mountains of Bhutan. Perhaps the most exciting time was the 14 years he spent working in Afghanistan starting with a biodiversity project but then broadening out into other areas of international development such as advising the Minister of Agriculture on policy issues to carrying out a national public perception survey and developing strategic documents for the UN. Life goes in circles and so having returned to live in the UK again, he is now in the 5^th year of training on a 6-year course in herbal medicine and hopes to be their oldest graduate in 2027.