Cultivation as a conservation tool for cacti: review of the botanical evidence and a case study of Lophophora williamsii
Anna O.Ermakova, Martin K.Terry, KeeperTrout,
Bradleya, 2022(sp40):71-82 (2022)
This article is a copyright material, reproduced by permission of the British Cactus and Succulent Society.
PDFDOI
Abstract
In this article we review the literature, with a focus on cacti, about the role of cultivation in conservation. We examine in detail the case study of Lophophora williamsii, the peyote cactus, and present arguments that cultivation is not only a necessary conservation strategy for this particular species but is likely the only viable alternative for long-term survival of this cactus in the wild. Concerns about cultivation, as well as recommendations and conservation implications are also discussed.
When Cultivation of a Religious Sacrament Equals Manufacturing a Controlled Substance: Effects of the Absence of Adequate Regulatory Structure on the Conservation of Peyote.
Martin Terry, Keeper Trout & Bennie Williams. 2015.
The progress toward and impediments to legally protected cultivation of Lophophora williamsii, commonly known as peyote, are elucidated. Recent increases in the ceremonial and medicinal consumption of peyote are inferred from published data and personal observations of the authors. The conservation-based rationale for peyote cultivation is that the predictable shift in the primary mode of production from the current unsustainable harvesting of wild peyote in habitat to regulated cultivation of peyote, either in situ or under glass, would provide alternative supplies of peyote for current and future use by the Native American Church. Such a change in the principal peyote production system from wild-harvesting to cultivation would logically reduce the harvesting pressure on the peyote populations that survive the intense overharvesting inherent in the present system. We summarize current and evolving aspects of the regulatory environment and emerging perceptions regarding the need for U.S. federal regulations that would provide legal certainty for individuals involved in the adoption of cultivation of culturally acceptable peyote on an economically viable commercial scale.
Cultivation
This was variously positioned as Chapter 2 or Chapter 3 in the revisions of the book Sacred Cacti.
Peyote harvesting appears to be a sustainable practice, at least in potential or in theory. In its present-day application however, the slow attrition process leading to the endangered species path has already clearly begun. It is clear that the consumers of peyote still have plenty of peyote to last for some years to come. Maybe even for the rest of our lifetimes, especially if you are middle aged like me. Sustainability is not something defined by the here-and-now though. A commonly cited definition of sustainability is found in the 1987 Brundtland Report for The United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” As Kimberly Cover pointed out in 2005, that report’s definition is curiously similar to the Iroquois concept of thinking with responsibility for the next seven generations.
Much more study is needed to better define what was seen in the limited harvesting studies that exist but this is how it looks at the moment: The increased rate of mortality that results from a one time harvest is low enough so as not to adversely impact the long term survival of a population. That only appears to be true when adequate time is permitted between harvests. Some period greater than six years is all we can say about that number pending future data emerging. If enough plants of adequate size and potency exist to fill the anticipated needs of the active NAC membership and those plants are being reharvested no more often than they can regrow and return to being what they were prior to the point when they were first cut, harvesting appears to be sustainable. Anything which creates an average result that achieves less than that, such as is presently the case, is not a sustainable practice.
So, let’s come back to our question, “Why ISN’T peyote cultivated?”
Probably the single most important element as to why cultivation is not already a part of the picture is the simple fact that none of the non-NAC people who are legally involved in the supply side have actual legal protection permitting them to cultivate peyote. Whether those are peyote distributors or ranchers permitting individual NAC members to access their land to harvest their own peyote, they are in general law-abiding respected citizens who want to stay out of any trouble. Additionally, the peyote distributors can lose their licenses for violating the law. As the licensed distributor Mauro Morales told Franks in 2007: “You have to make sure you don’t have a problem with the law, you know?“
The portion of South Texas where peyote occurs naturally is commonly referred to as the Peyote Gardens, despite there being a complete lack of historical peyote cultivation. There are presently at least two pertinent stumbling blocks preventing this land from actually being used for creating a real peyote garden (or otherwise addressing the fatal long-term flaws that are inherent within the existing distribution system). Those are located within the Texas DPS (Department of Public Safety) regulations concerning peyote harvesting:
One for the Distributors: §13.42. Peyote Distributor Registration. (d) Activity not authorized. A distributor registration does not authorize the distributor to:(1) manufacture or cultivate peyote; (2) ingest or use peyote; (3) deliver to an individual who is an Indian as the term is defined in AIRFA, unless the individual is also an Indian as the term is defined in this subchapter; or (4) import or export peyote except as permitted by federal law.
& Another for the Ranchers has two pertinent features of interest: “§13.55 adopted to be effective July 18, 2001, 26 Tex Reg 5266 (only a part is being included below) Nothing in this subchapter affects the ability of a landowner to: […] (2) burn or clear land for purposes unrelated to harvesting, cutting, collecting, or possessing peyote.” and within that same subsection, (b) Prohibited. Unless registered as a distributor or reported to the director as a current employee of a distributor, a landowner may not sell, harvest, cut, collect, transport, or possess peyote. A landowner does not possess peyote in violation of the Act or this subchapter if the peyote is unharvested and growing in its natural state.”
Landowners are permited to charge access fees for peyote harvesting but interestingly there is another clause in this same regulation that adds: “(d) Harvest fee limitation. Unless the landowner is registered as a distributor, the director will deem the landowner to be selling or distributing peyote if the landowner bases the fee charged or collected under subsection (c)(1) of this section on the amount of peyote harvested, cut, or collected by the Indian using or entering the land”
Notice that this is a dysfunctional “one-price-regardless-of-harvest-size” scenario that actually encourages the maximum possible harvesting to occur per visit. Since the law further sets the retail price as being per piece (i.e. per button) and not by weight there is just as much financial motivation to harvest tiny plants as older ones. Increasing difficulty in gaining access adds additional motivation to maximize the harvests recovered on every visit.
Many ranchers don’t like peyote or peyote harvesting or peyote people and express a familiar bias directed against them. A not untypical attitude is Sahagun’s 1994 quote of ranch owner Robert East. “I don’t want them here. That’s all there is to it. I think it’s a dope business, that peyote.” Morgan 1984 included a similar quote: Racism and bigotry often still exist close to the surface in South Texas, in all directions. When talking with ranchers, several times I’ve heard it said that the cause for the disappearance of peyote was “over-grazing by the Indians.”
While that degrading analogy blames the “Indians” there is actually a highly valuable insight if we look at what IS actually real within that notion — namely, as is also true for a rancher’s grazing animals, the NAC is in fact being constrained and provided with its Medicine in a regulated and controlled manner rather than having the freedom to do as they choose. Blaming Native Americans for the, ahem, “over-grazing” problem is about as sound as a rancher blaming their grazing animals for “eating too much” rather than, in this case, correctly recognizing that any “overgrazing” was the direct result of negligent planning, counter-productive activities and incompetent management on the part of the ranch manager.
Similarly the fees charged by ranchers for access are high enough to stimulate maximizing the harvesting per visit as well. Johnson has mentioned ranchers’ greed raising access costs from what once was a pittance to something more significant.
Grant gave a 2000 estimation of it then typically costing $1,500 or $2,000 a month for a peyote lease; which provided a small work crew with access to locate and harvest crowns that were then being sold at the retail level for around $0.15 each.
There is no question that the public perception of the peyote trade being profitable contributed to that increase in peyote lease fees. Not everyone shares completely identical motivations. Sahagun 1994 described rancher Rick Walker as being “fed up with trespassers. But he suggested another reason for guarding the peyote gardens on his land. Peyote, he said, may one day become a hot commodity – for ranchers.”
There is at least one rancher in South Texas, the identity of whom is being withheld, who has discovered a unique way to legally make money from his peyote and still protect them from any harm. Instead of leasing his land for the harvest of peyote buttons, he instead “showcases” his peyote plants. He permits organized “eco-tours” to bring visitors onto his property in a bus as part of a fee-based tour. They are allowed to visit his property under tightly controlled circumstances in order to witness and photograph his healthy population of peyote plants. The tour bus also takes the visitors away at the end of the visit so there is no risk of theft. That population is, just as importantly, also located far enough away from the nearest road to ensure that none of their visitors will be able to return on foot.
While this may sound cynical, one other highly significant factor in the perpetuation of the status quo is that the peyote distributors actually derive a very good living from their trade.
Despite the low cost per button, it is actually a moderately lucrative profession in what is historically an economically depressed region of Texas since the three remaining peyote distributors combined now typically report a total sales of a little under a half million dollars per year ($530,230 in 2013, $434,609 in 2012, $466,590 in 2011, $459,699 in 2010 and $493,834 in 2009 according to DPS records). This reflects their combined totals so in reality it is split into uneven thirds based on how much they actually sell. Each distributor’s total sales pays for their lease fees, their expenses and is also what they pay to the small group of their ’employees’ who help them harvest peyote. In most cases their employees are their relatives. Unlike the ranches, the distributors are authorized to pay and charge a fee on a per-button basis. Resale prices to their consumers had risen from around $0.09 in 1990 to $0.15 in 2000 and to $0.33 per button in 2011. (A hidden cost factor within that is that the rise in cost had been accompanied by a decrease in size and potency which meant people were required to eat more buttons. See Terry et al. 2012. Link goes to the PDF at CCI’s website.) A perceived threat to their income and livelihood is no doubt going to be an important motivating factor and can add some illumination to the larger picture and help us to better understand why there is such resistance to change at the distributor level.
Sahagun 1994 quoted Johnson as saying,
“I love what I do, enjoy the hell out of it. But hey, you don’t get rich picking peyote.“
It is not a huge amount of money but in a region where relatively few other alternative options for similarly lucrative employment opportunities exist it is certainly something that the people involved are going to care about. Relatively few of the distributors and harvesters could successfully turn into peyote growers without investing resources and time in buying land and/or learning skill sets they do not presently possess. Even if they decided to take that path, it would put them on equal footing at the starting gate along with their new competition only if they had the same level of interest, education and skills as a professional gardener or nursery operator.
While the state law that was mentioned previously as granting the distributors their licensing specifically prohibits the distributors from cultivating peyote, the federal law gives the NAC, or anyone else who is producing peyote for the NAC, the authorization to “manufacture” their Medicine (21 CFR 1307.31). [The regulation says “Any person who manufactures peyote for or distributes peyote to the Native American Church, however, is required to obtain registration annually and to comply with all other requirements of law.” That applies to any person, NAC or otherwise. There is no special restriction to NAC members in this regulation.] Manufacturing a plant obviously requires growing it or else modern technology has become much farther advanced than I am aware.
Congress has further added an affirmative clause that suggests NAC cultivation was at least being envisioned as enough of a possibility that its regulation needed inclusion.
(b) Use, possession, or transportation of peyote (1) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the use, possession, or transportation of peyote by an Indian for bona fide traditional ceremonial purposes in connection with the practice of a traditional Indian religion is lawful, and shall not be prohibited by the United States or any State. No Indian shall be penalized or discriminated against on the basis of such use, possession or transportation, including, but not limited to, denial of otherwise applicable benefits under public assistance programs. (2) This section does not prohibit such reasonable regulation and registration by the Drug Enforcement Administration of those persons who cultivate, harvest, or distribute peyote as may be consistent with the purposes of this section and section1996 of this title. (In 42 USC § 1996a.) [Again, this applies to all persons, but it certainly includes the NAC.]
Which, at the very least, suggests that the road to the future cultivation of peyote by the NAC appears to be open as an available option that is protected by federal law. As AIRFAA treats cultivation in exactly the same manner as it does distribution, and because regulated distribution requires a long-standing registration process that functions daily before our very eyes, it would seem to be obvious that Congress intended cultivation to be not merely a hypothetical possibility, but a real option that should be realizable by the act of registration (to be defined and regulated, of course, by DEA).
Dried peyote buttons from Safford 1916
Robledo 2006 included a thought-provoking comment that was left unexplained but touches on an often overlooked contribution to peyote harvesting by the NAC:
” Out of the approximate 5 million buttons sold legally each year in the U.S. and Canada, deep South Texas provides about 2 million, with Salvador and his team of peyoteros providing at least 1 million themselves.“
What is not mentioned by Robledo is what source provides the other 3 million of those buttons. It is noteworthy that the amount being estimated as procured independently of the activities of the licensed distributors exceeds their total output by 50%. It is reasonable to assume that he refers to the peyote that is being provided by the independent NAC members who are harvesting their own peyote. This brings us to another element in the story that we will return to again later – in the second part of this chapter. Before moving onward this also is a great example of how much of the current “wisdom” about the peyote trade is based on untraceable rumor rather than documented fact. In the case of Robledo’s intriguing assertion of an actual numeric value for the unregulated peyote trade there are two glaring and inescapable facts that might be easily overlooked: 1) The claim lacks mention of its actual source or providing any indication about where or how this information came into Robledo’s awareness, and 2) it is an absolute impossibility for anyone to keep track of, much less tally with accuracy, the actual extent of the peyote trade occurring independently of the licensed distributors.
In 1988, after interviewing the active licensed distributors, John Morthland commented:
“Dealers worry constantly about running out of stock, so they keep sources secret from outsiders and even from each other. They are also afraid that if Indians ever discovered the choice growing areas, they might try to bypass the dealers.”
An actual attempt by some peyote distributors to control the peyote trade and deliberately try to prevent cultivation by their customers actually goes back a very long time. Some comments from BIA Special Agent “Pussyfoot” Johnson were featured in an intriguing account by his supervisor that appears in a 1909 issue of the Indian School Journal, entitled “History, Use and Effects of Peyote.”
“About twenty-three years ago a white man appeared at Laredo from the Territory in quest of peyotes.He learned from the Indians up north that in a range of hills about forty miles east of Laredo, these peyotes could be found, He employed Mexicans to gather a supply, which he took north with him. He came in contact with a shipper by the name of Villegas, founder of the house known as L. Villegas and Company. Villegas then began buying these peyotes of ignorant Mexicans and shipping them north to the Indians. This house has been doing this for more than twenty years, but the business has been kept as secret as possible. Villegas has always refused to give the Indians any information as to the source of supply and has also refused all these years to supply Indians with the whole plant, fearing that they would transplant them and thus establish their own source of supply. Half a dozen years ago a member of the firm named Wormser withdrew and established the house of Wormser Brothers, of course taking the secret of the peyotes with him. These two houses very craftily called these peyotes by the name of Japanese buttons, and created the impression locally that they were for some mysterious use by the Japanese. These two houses, in this way, have built up a commercial monopoly in peyotes for the whole United States, practically. About forty miles east of Laredo and four miles from the Texas-Mexican Railway, is an ancient Mexican town of about fifteen families, called Los Ojuelos. It has a graveyard larger than the town itself. It is located close to the edge of some rough, rocky graveled hills, on which these peyotes grow wild; none are cultivated anywhere. They grow wild under the shelter of a bush on these rocky ledges. […] The Mexicans who gather the plant do not pull it up by the roots, but merely cut off the tops, leaving the potato itself in the ground. The top part of this potato then rots. The lower roots then grow and three or four peyotes often thereby appear where there originally was but one. It requires from one to two months’ time properly to dry these peyote tops for the market. In this village, Los Ojuelos, are two small stores run by V. Laurel and Bro., and the other by Gayetasio Ochoa, the latter being postmaster. The villagers gather these peyotes and turn them into these two stores for supplies, getting about $2.50 a thousand for them. An industrious worker can not gather more than two hundred per day.“
Modern workers appear to be able to harvest faster.
“It used to be you’d go out for a couple of hours and you’d find 500 to 1,000 plants,” he said. “Now, you go out for six hours and you don’t come back with much.“ Mauro Morales in Roebuck 2004.
“In three hours his two brothers gathered about five potato sacks, some 4000 buttons in all.“ De Cordoba 2004 speaking of his time with Salvador Johnson.
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