Psychedelic Fences
What Integrated Conservation Looks Like
Volume 5 | 25 February 2022
Hello, friends!
As part of my PhD research, we spend lots of time surveying the wild populations of San Pedro in Peru. And we’ve discovered something wonderful in the last few months: hundreds of thousands of plants are being consciously propagated and planted by Andean communities, as they have been for decades.
This is not a universal practice – it exists in a handful of places where the plants grow wild. And these communities have all but forgotten the plant’s medicinal uses. But they are doing more for Huachuma conservation than anyone else on earth.
Not because the plants are sacred, and certainly not because they are beautiful. But because they are useful. Fast-growing, strong, and spiny, the plants form effective fences that both cattle and cattle thieves are loath to cross. These San Pedro “fences” grow so fast that they are continuously cut back like weeds, and their limbs taken to seed new sections of fence.
And check out this awesome video from the field of a newly planted San Pedro fence.
There is a simple truth of rural life operating here, one that we at HC are intimately familiar with (I grew up in rural Montana; Josip on a farm between coast and Andes; and our partner Felipe in the caserio of Tambo Real).
Here it is: The more reasons you have to do something, the likelier it is you’ll put your valuable time and effort into it. Beauty is nice, but it’s rarely enough. Efficiency is important, but it’s not catalyzing. Common sense is foundational, but that is all. Utility is indispensable. Cultural tradition brings strength and meaning. And economic gain – let’s be real – is motivating. The more of these reasons that individuals and communities have to plant and care for San Pedro – beyond just ‘conservation’ – the more likely it is that they will do so.
Conservation has been romanticized in a world of victims and rescuers. Save the orcas! Save the old growth! Save Ayahuasca! They’re all worthy causes. And yet, so many conservation solutions are more connected to alarmist rhetoric that they are to the realities on the ground – usually, humble people going about their business and caring for their children.
When it comes to “saving” Ayahuasca, for example, the largest proportion of conservation dollars are going towards establishing large plantations that have nothing to do with the people of the forest or with the communities of plants and animals that make up Aya’s spiritual world. All the while, local and Indigenous harvesters who bring wild plants to market are demonized for destroying them.
The North American venture capitalist at the helm of the largest of these Ayahuasca plantations approached us not long ago about planting San Pedro, but he was turned off when he learned we weren’t trying to help him make money on this “exponential curve.” We did, however, give him some tips on the “best practices” he was searching for.
We believe the future of San Pedro conservation does not lie in large plantations, or in idealized monocultures. It does not lie in irrigated rows of cactus fed with an ideal ratio of synthetic fertilizer. So much of what makes the plants who they are can be found in their relationships with rivers and birds and dark soil. It matters who cares for them, and what their intentions and motivations are. Love is a best practice. Diversity is a best practice. Realness is a best practice. Small-scale is a best practice. Relationship is a best practice.
Coastal agriculture in Peru already works this way, as does potato and maca production in the Andes. Each neighbor has a stand of mango and avocado trees, a few rows of pitahaya (dragon fruit), or a hillside of prickly-pear cactus covered in precious red cochineal. These are high-value crops suited for small parcels of land. At harvest time, farmers take their small or medium-sized harvest to regional buyers, who sell it to national and international markets. Demand in those larger markets affects the price that small farmers get for their produce, and drives what the farmers invest in planting next. San Pedro could easily be the next crop.
The vast majority of people who already grow Huachuma in Peru do not use it as medicine, but simply for the joy of having the plants around. It is planted outside front doors as a protector who, it is said, whistles to alert homeowners of delinquents. Or grown in the back garden to attract good fortune.
What if every house in Peru had a pair of plants, whether the owners drink medicine or not?
What if communities who use the plants for fencing taught other communities in other San Pedro habitats to do the same? What if they started to drink the medicine again, and learned its deeper value?
What if, on a global scale, everyone who drinks the medicine cared for a pair of plants?
Instead of two hundred million plants grown by a handful of people, how about a pair of plants each grown by a hundred million people? How much more currency of connection exists in the second option?
The best part is, it’s not rocket science (but hey, the plants will take you to the moon if you let them)! San Pedro grows on love and sunshine. No education, knowledge, money, or special skills required.
It’s not just a win-win… it’s a win-win-win-win-win. And isn’t that just how nature operates?
Speaking of win-wins, we have some good news…
AGUA·COYA has moved to Substack! Don’t worry, it’s still free, and we plan to keep it that way. We’ve moved because Substack allows you to access our entire collection of back-issues. I put a good dollop of love into each of these photo-essays, and I want them to exist in a more permanent format. It makes the time I donate here more sustainable, and you can look here to see what issues you may have missed.
And a final quick request… we have been hearing from several subscribers that this newsletter gets sent to Spam or the Promotions tab. Please mark this email as “important” and “not spam” and add huachuma.collective@gmail.com to your email contacts to reassure the internet that we’re friends.
We look forward to a year of sustainable action with you!
In love and community,
Laurel
That was awesome, both photos and words. My condensed philosophy is that more wachuma is more better. Up here, no doubt high production, profit motive plantings will become a thing sooner than later and there is no stopping that. The cannabis industry here is gross. I think conscious farms are a fine idea. Even mega, profit driven farms are better than nothing I suppose. But I'm certainly more for the plant it everywhere model, where there's always cactus at a friends house or close by somewhere. I want California to look more like those photos! I'm also very interested in promoting for planting as intentional living fences, firebreaks, and noise & visual barriers. That might bring them into use in larger scale practical plantings that are not profit motivated. But it has to be in quantities large enough to absorb grazing by hippies and sellers by gradually devaluing the plant. Devaluation is a huge hurdle for a non indigenous plant. Right now, the community is very focused on personal collecting and high value trading, v.s. larger in the ground planting, public planting and gifting. The niche I would like to fill is figuring out how to produce huge amounts of good seedlings cheap enough to help monetarily devalue the plant gradually shifting the focus to its altruistic value. Whoever grows propagates and plants them, that means a LOT of plants produced efficienty, and planted in the ground, not just in private backyard collections. The major paradigm shift that needs to happen here is from "what can the cactus do for me" and "how can I get", to "what can I do for the cactus and cactus community" and "what can I give". Anyway, you rock :)
Delighted to see you here at Substack, along with Charles Eisenstein and so many others I’m reading these days! Laurel, this is so well written. As you noted, this approach of respect for the people, the land, and all of the beings connected to any plant being cultivated is crucial to our future. Much love to you, Josip and Felipe ♥️🙏🏻