Richard Evans Schultes (1911-2001) was widely considered the preeminent authority on hallucinogenic and medicinal plants, and is regarded as the father of modern ethnobotany. A professor at Harvard, he published ten books and more than four hundred and fifty scientific articles. In 1992 he received the gold medal of the Linnean Society of London, which is often equated with the Nobel Prize for botany. Schultes's research into hallucinogenic plants made some of his books cult favorites among drug experimenters in the 1960s. His findings influenced such cultural icons as Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, William Burroughs, and Carlos Castenada. Wade Davis studied for several years with Richard Evans Schultes while getting his PhD in ethnobotany and is a critically acclaimed, internationally best-selling author and anthropologist. His many books include The Serpent and the Rainbow , One River , The Wayfinders , and Into the Silence --winner of the 2012 Samuel Johnson Prize, the top award for literary nonfiction in the English language. Between 1999 and 2013, Davis served as explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society and he is currently a professor of anthropology and the LEEF Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia.

Chris Murray , who edited Schultes's remarkable photographs and journals for publication in The Lost Amazon as well as curated other fine photography books, is the founder and director of Govinda Gallery in Washington D.C., where he lives. An exhibition based on The Lost Amazon , which originated at the Govinda Gallery, is among the more than two hundred exhibitions he has organized. Andrew Weil , M.D., is a world-renowned leader and pioneer in the field of integrative medicine. Dr.

Weil is the founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, where he is also a clinical professor of medicine, professor of public health, and the Lovell-Jones Professor of Integrative Rheumatology. Dr. Weil received both his medical degree and his undergraduate AB degree in biology (botany) from Harvard University. Approximately ten million copies of Dr. Weil's books have been sold worldwide.