David Peterson is president of NaturNorth Technologies. The business is a spinoff from the University of Minnesota-Duluth's Natural Resources Research Institute. It has a patent on a process to extract large quantities of pure betulin, a component of birch bark. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
A start-up company is banking on birch bark. The papery bark can be used for more than baskets and canoes. It’s used in skin creams, and scientists are studying it for use in treating skin rashes and even cancer. But Native American healers have been using birch bark for years, and some of them are worried about the supply. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Transcript
A start-up company is banking on birch bark. The papery bark can be used for more than baskets and canoes. It’s used in skin creams, and scientists are studying it for use in treating skin rashes and even cancer. But Native American healers have been using birch bark for years, and some of them are worried about the supply. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Have you ever noticed – walking in the woods – those cylinders of bright white bark, lying on the forest floor? Those are the remains of a birch tree. The inside of the tree rots away quickly, but the bark lasts much longer.
“The birch tree has some incredible defense mechanisms that protect the tree from weather, from rain, from sun, keep the moisture in, keep moisture out.”
David Peterson knows birch trees pretty well. He was a top manager at the Potlatch Paper Mill near Duluth, Minnesota. The plant processes thousands of trees every day, and burns the bark to make steam.
“I always was interested in trying to come with a way of using some of these low value waste streams generated from pulp paper mills and other places, it seemed like such a horrible waste, to take these really interesting compounds and put them in a boiler for boiler fuel.”
Peterson’s new company, NaturNorth Technologies, plans to make something worth a lot more than boiler fuel. The company has patented a process to extract large quantities of a chemical, betulin, that gives birch bark its anti-bacterial and anti-fungal qualities.
Mill workers remove bark from a tree that’s harvested for lumber or paper-making. It’s shredded into pellets, and put through a chemical process that extracts the betulin. It ends up looking something like salt.
“Here’s a sample of betulin, and you can see how bright and white it is. It’s got a chalky feel when you touch it.”
Apparently, what birch bark does for the birch tree, it can also do for human skin – protect it from the assaults of the physical world. Betulin is already used in some creams and cosmetics, but NaturNorth plans to be the first company in the world to market it on a large scale.
The idea of selling lots of betulin from birch bark makes Skip Sandman nervous. He’s a Native American traditional healer for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. He uses birch bark for medicine. He says it’s a pain-killer and blood-thinner and can be used for intestinal disorders.
“Fortunately, when people use it for medicines and stuff, one small tree does go a long way. But you might have to travel 15, 20 miles to find the right type of tree.”
Sandman says the bigger trees – ten to twelve inches in diameter – have a bigger supply of the properties he uses in medicine. And lately he’s had to go farther to find those big trees. He says that’s because timber companies have cut down so many of the big trees and now they’re working on smaller and smaller trees.
“But you see the logging trucks go by, and they’re just whacking down everything. Well they think it’s only a tree. But when the trees are gone, then what do we do?”
Sandman says in the Ojibwe creation story, each plant and animal promised to help people in some way, and birch trees offered their healing qualities. He says it’s important to use them respectfully, and not for profit, but only to help people. He says he approaches the tree with an offering of tobacco.
“I will put tobacco down and ask and talk to that tree, because it is alive.”
The folks at NaturNorth are hoping to make money from birch trees, but they’re also excited about helping people. David Peterson says he gets letters from people who want some betulin to treat a skin condition.
“When you get those letters, you can’t help but to feel that somebody out there that’s gonna benefit eventually from these compounds, I think it’s quite sobering and humbling.”
NaturNorth has started marketing betulin to cosmetics companies, and scientists are studying betulinic acid for its disease-fighting potential. Peterson says it’ll be several years before NaturNorth generates a profit.
For the GLRC, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.