The Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund (IMC) is a non-profit organization that works to strengthen indigenous communities in their efforts to conserve plant medicines and traditional knowledge with whom they have lived in deep relationship for thousands of years, and who are vital to their healing and cultural survival.
Thus, the IMC seeks to collect $20 million in order to support several different projects that protect these key medicines: ayahuasca, the toad more quickly alvarius, iboga, peyote and mushrooms.
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In dialogue with Forbes, Sutton King (IMC manager) and Miriam Volat (co-director), ensure that the large psychedelic companies approach the original peoples to “get knowledge regarding specific drugs, offer financial support, or both”.
Nevertheless, this behavior is not welcome nor is it in line with indigenous customs.
Protect the heritage of indigenous psychedelic medicine
“We have a potential problem here. There are many for-profit companies that want to enter indigenous communities and enact ‘reciprocity’. But actually it’s a disguise for something more transactional. Us [en IMC Fund] we really want to take a step back on that word, because we’re a long way from reciprocity. Reciprocity implies consent and we are not there yetexplains King, an activist and member of the Menominee and Oneida Nation of Wisconsin.
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So what do community leaders need?
“They said that to be prepared for the rush of interest in their cultures and medicines, they needed financial support, to shore up their cultural structures and help to interact with all these different organizations«, answers Volat, researcher, communicator and environmentalist.
And he adds: «One of the key pieces is enable the elderly and communities who have traditional knowledge may have a way to guide that right interface and relationshipwithout being deeply disturbed by the process.
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Meanwhile, it should be noted that the IMC Fund has an intricate governance structure, with a lot of participation from members of indigenous communities throughout the Americas. And, so far, they support more than 20 different projects, such as the Indigenous Peyote Conservation Initiative (IPCI).
