This short film is an invitation to witness not just the work of the Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund, but the relationships, responsibilities, and spiritual leadership that guide it.
Across territories and cultures, Indigenous communities continue to care for sacred medicines, ancestral lands, and the living knowledge that sustains them. This film offers a window into that world: one rooted in ceremony, reciprocity, and deep commitment to future generations.
We are honored to walk alongside Elders, healers, and community leaders who continue to share what true stewardship looks like.
Link to full short video in linktree
🎥 Written, directed and produced by the talented Leandra Romero @leandra_romero_
Cinematography: Consuelo Althouse @conci.a
Editing: Gavyn Gates @gavyn_gates
🌱 Made with gratitude and respect for all participating communities
#IndigenousLed #BioculturalConservation #SacredMedicine #RightRelationship #CulturalSovereignty #IMCFund
IMC Fund Participation in Psychedelic Science 2025
The Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund recently supported a Delegation to present at Psychedelic Science 2025, in Denver, Colorado from June 16-20. The Delegation included 23 Indigenous territorial people and 27 non-Indigenous interpreters and supporters. We came from 6 countries, representing 6 biocultures.
Our Conservation Committee agreed - if we do not communicate our concerns to this growing psychedelic field, more harm will be done.
We traveled for the purpose of:
✨Raising awareness about the threats facing both the medicines and the cultures that care for them
✨Reminding people that Indigenous leadership in the stewardship of sacred medicines is essential and should not be interrupted
✨Requesting respectful, responsible relationships with these medicines and their guardians
✨Inspiring change toward rightful relationships across sectors by individuals, organizations and institutions
✨Presenting an updated collective declaration from the IMC Fund Delegation to the psychedelic field
With these goals, the IMC Fund curated 2 full days of programming on the conference’s Plant Medicine stage; hosted a full-day workshop exploring world views and right relationship; participated in keynote presentations/panels; and gave remarks in the conference opening and closing ceremonies. In total, we participated in 1 workshop, 12 talks/panels, 3 keynote presentations/panels, an opening land acknowledgement, and opening and closing remarks. We also had a booth throughout the conference where we shared information about the work of the IMC Fund and our partners.
Here we share some of the key messages in graphic form. You can also read more about our participation at https://imc.fund/journal/ps-2025-summary
Today is International Mother Earth Day and the world pauses to remember what Indigenous People have never stopped knowing: that the earth is not a backdrop to human civilization. She is its source. Its condition. Its mother.
The United Nations established this day in 2009. But the knowledge it asks us to remember is thousands of years older– held in the hands of those who have stewarded and tended her, in the memory of the forests, in the ceremonies of communities who never stopped listening to the land.
At the IMC Fund this is not a calendar moment, this is the center of our work.
We exist because the cultures, medicines, ecosystems most vital to all of life are also the most endangered. Because the Original Peoples of the world are the living intelligences of this planet. And because the knowledge they carry of how to heal, how to tend, how to belong to a place, cannot be replicated in a laboratory or recovered once lost.
As billions of dollars are being poured into plant medicine research, the question of who benefits, and who is protected, is not just ethical. It is foundational.
Today we sit with a reckoning question.
How are we, each of us, truly caring for our mother?
Not just today. In what we fund. In who we center. In what we refuse to let disappear.
Happy Earth Day! May it be more than remembrance.
#InternationalMotherEarthDay #EarthDay2026 #IMCFund
We stand with the Wixárika people of Taateikie.
In recent days, the Wixárika community of Taateikie, Jalisco has issued an urgent call, declaring a state of maximum alert in the face of a serious security crisis on their territory.
The presence of organized crime has created a climate of violence, fear, and violation of fundamental rights without an adequate response from the Mexican state.
The community is demanding immediate intervention from all three levels of government, the deployment of the National Guard and SEDENA, and the guaranteed safety and free movement of their families. They are holding the Mexican State responsible for any aggression, loss of life or forced displacement that may occur.
This is part of a pattern of vulnerability that Indigenous communities across Mexico and the Americas face, where territories, cultures and sacred medicines are already under pressure from climate change, cultural erosion, and the growing demands of a commercializing world.
The Wixárika people are an important part of the Peyote bioculture; the IMC Fund works directly supporting traditional Wixárika communities and governance processes, and it is from a place of ongoing relationship and deep respect that we share this today.
Their ceremonial life, their knowledge and their continued presence on their ancestral land are irreplaceable, not only for thor people but for all of humanity.
When a community cannot move freely and safely on their own land everything we live to protect is at risk.
Source: Taateikie, MX, April 6, 2026
“Por la vida, la dignidad y la autonomĂa de los pueblos. For life, dignity, and the autonomy of peoples”.
#Wixarika #Taateikie #IMCFund #Peyote #IndigenousRights
“Fabricated Ancestrality: The Sonoran Desert Toad, Psychedelic Globalization, and the Ecological Politics of 5-MeO-DMT”
The psychedelic movement has built significant demand around Sonoran Desert Toad-derived 5-MeO-DMT, fueled in part by a narrative of ancestral use that the historical and ethnographic record simply does not support.
Now, a new peer-reviewed study by Anny Ortiz, PhD, just published in Psychedelics (Elsevier, 2026), names this process and traces its consequences for a species that is genuinely at risk.
The IMC Fund supported the population assessment that documents these concerns. Preliminary findings from this study were presented at MAPS Psychedelic Science 2025 and covered by the New York Times. The species is at risk. Formal reclassification work is underway.
Swipe through to understand what fabricated ancestrality is, what it costs ecologically, and what right relationship with the Sonoran Desert Toad, and the cultures that have always lived alongside it, looks like.
Full open-access article in bio. đź”—
If you work with this medicine, this research is for you. Read it. Sit with it. Let it inform how you move forward. Ask yourself: whose story have you been repeating, and who told it to you?
Sacred medicine does not require exaggerated timelines to deserve respect. And the Sonoran Desert Toad does not need to be a psychedelic sacrament to deserve protection.
This publication is dedicated to the memory of Anny’s father, who transcended this week. Anny was born and raised in Sonora, the very land at the heart of this research. Her love for that place, its people, and its creatures lives in every page of this work. We hold her and her family in our hearts.
#SonoranDesertToad #Bufo #IMCFund #GetBehindTheMedicine #5MeODMT RightRelationship
What happens when a narrative travels faster than the truth?
And what happens on the other side when evidence of deep Indigenous antiquity gets dismissed too quickly when the forest doesn’t preserve its secrets well?
Our communications lead Tanya Kammonen recently spoke with Anny Ortiz, PhD whose newly published research on the Sonoran Desert Toad has just come out. What started as a conversation about fabricated ancestrality opened into something broader– a reflection on antiquity debates, genomics, archeological preservation bias, and what is genuinely at stake when narratives get it wrong in either direction.
Because here’s what Tanya found herself sitting with: the same academic tools rightly expose a fabricated story about “Toad medicine” can– in other contexts– be used to minimize traditions that are genuinely ancient. The absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence. Especially in a tropical forest.
The latest entry in our journal explores all of it. Anny’s research, a remarkable 2022 genomics study suggesting long term human adaptation to plant alkaloids in Quechua populations, pre-Incan trade networks, and what responsible recognition of Indigenous rights in medicine use looks like.
It’s a longer read. It’s worth it.
đź”— Link in bio to read the full journal entry.
Sacred medicines do not require exaggerated timelines to deserve respect . But neither should they be constrained by assumptions rooted in preservation bias or outdated models of cultural simplicity.
#SonoranDesertToad ##IMCFund #RightRelationhip #Huachuma BioculturalConservation GetBehindTheMedicine
We are overjoyed to celebrate our dear partner and brother Benki Piyãko, Indigenous spiritual leader of the Ashaninka People of Brazil’s Amazon, who has been awarded the 43rd Ninawo Peace Prize by the Niwano Peace Foundation in Tokyo Japan.
For over fifteen years, Benki has walked this path with unwavering courage and devotion. He has lived his life defending Indigenous land and culture, pioneering large-scale reforestation and protecting the Ayahuasca bioculture. Through the Yorenka Tasorentsi Institute and the Indigenous Ayahuasca Conference he has mobilized youth and communities ensuring that traditional knowledge is not only preserved but carried forward by the next generation.
His work is guided and rooted in Indigenous spirituality in a profound relationship with the Earth, and in the understanding that the health of the forest and the health of the people are one.
This recognition is not only for Benki, it is for the Ashaninka people, for the Amazon and for Indigenous Peoples around the world protecting their land, their medicines and their way of life.
At the IMC Fund we are grateful to stand behind partners like Benki whose vision reminds us why this work is sacred and why it cannot wait.
The award ceremony will take place in Tokyo on May 12, 2026.
Congratulations Benki!
#BenkiPiyĂŁko #NiwanoPeacePrize #Ashaninka #IMCFund #GetBehindTheMedicine
To our women. To all women. This work lives through you.
On this International Women’s Day we celebrate the extraordinary women who are the heartbeat of The Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund.
They lead with vision. They guard ancient knowledge. They bridge worlds. They hold the infrastructure of this mission with grace and precision.
We also extend our deepest gratitude to all the women around the world, the knowledge keepers, the healers, the land defenders, the mothers and the grandmothers whose wisdom this work is rooted in and exists to protect.
#IMCFund #InternationalWomensDay #WomensDay
A first public look at a short video that our partners at Oni Xobo produced out of their second Festival Tari – a space for celebrating ancestral dance, song, and culture, while simultaneously exploring modern influence and expression of cultural heritage.
The third Festival Tari will happen in 2026 and is open to the public, though prioritizes Shipibo and Amazonian Indigenous participation and audiences.
👉🏾 Watch and leave a comment below.
#BioculturalConservation #IMCFund #IndigenousLed #FestivalTari #Shipibo
At Festival Tari in Yarinacocha, Shipibo youth take the stage: dancing, singing, sharing poetry and art rooted in place, memory, and relationship.
For the IMC Fund, this is biocultural conservation in practice.
A growing body of research is affirming what Indigenous Peoples have long known: culture and ecology are inseparable. Artistic practices like song, dance, and visual art are ways knowledge is passed down, relationships with land are maintained, and responsibility is learned.
In this new journal post, we highlight our partners at Oni Xobo and their Festival Tari, as well as summarize a new chapter on art and biocultural ontology by Rika Tsuji and Benn Johnson.
When culture thrives, ecosystems are more likely to thrive too.
Supporting Indigenous-led cultural continuity is not separate from conservation — it is central to it.
Read the full post! Link in Bio
#IMCFund #GetBehindTheMedicine #BioculturalConservation #IndigenousLed #LivingCulture
So much of today’s environmental work still treats “nature” and “culture” as separate. But new scientific research is confirming what Indigenous Peoples have always known: biological and cultural diversity grow together, and must be protected together.
Recent peer-reviewed studies highlight how Indigenous and local knowledge systems aren’t just “add-ons” to Western science. They are sophisticated, place-based knowledge traditions that sustain ecosystems, strengthen resilience, and offer entirely different ways of understanding human wellbeing, including spiritual relationships with the land.
These findings confirm the core of the IMC Fund’s work: support Indigenous-led, spiritually informed biocultural conservation that protects not only forests and medicines, but languages, teachings, governance, and ways of life.
Science is catching up to a very old truth:
Right relationship heals, for people, cultures, and the Earth.
Read the full article on our blog.
Link đź”— is in the bio.
#IMCFund #GetBehindTheMedicine #RightRelationship #Indigenousled
