Peyote Conservation

Peyote (Lophophora williamsii) is a small, slow-growing cactus found in southern Texas and northern Mexico. It is a sacrament for members of the Native American Church and is important to other Indigenous peoples. This page summarizes what community-authored and scholarly sources say about threats to wild peyote. For the botany, see Peyote (Lophophora williamsii). For the traditions themselves, see Peyote and Its Traditional Contexts. Nothing here is a guide to harvesting, growing or obtaining peyote.

What the sources say about its status

Dr. Dawn Davis, an enrolled member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, a lifelong Native American Church member and a peyote researcher, told a U.S. House subcommittee in 2023 that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature categorizes peyote as vulnerable. She described threats to both the population and the habitat.[1] A 2019 news report likewise says church members worry that the cactus, now listed as vulnerable, could become endangered.[2] Some websites say Texas lists peyote as endangered, but we did not read a state source, so we do not state that. Proper evidence not found here for a recent, peer-reviewed count of wild plants: we looked at the testimony, a scholar's overview and a news report, and none gives a population number.

Where the pressure falls

A biologist at Sul Ross State University, Martin Terry, writes that in Texas peyote occurs only along the Mexican border and that commercially harvestable quantities occur in four counties: Starr, Zapata, Webb and Jim Hogg. He says this small area supplies the Native American Church across the continental United States and Canada, and that demand exceeds supply.[3] His membership estimate for the church is labeled as unknown and uncertain in the same document, so we do not repeat a figure.[3]

Causes described

Sources name several kinds of pressure. They are the views of the authors, not measured population studies.

• Harvesting too often. Terry says registered distributors are under pressure to harvest as much as possible and return to previously harvested plants before regrowth is mature. He lists consequences: smaller buttons, fewer seeds and some plants that never grow back.[3]
• Harvesting that does not allow regrowth. A former chairman of the Native American Church of North America (NACNA) told a reporter of reports about harvesting that "would not allow regrowth" and said the medicine sometimes arrives mushy or small.[2]
• Habitat change. Dr. Davis lists agricultural conversion, fossil fuel development, road development, exurban growth and wind energy. She notes that Tamaulipan brushland in south Texas is being converted to pasture for the non-native buffelgrass.[1]
• Theft and tourism. She also lists poachers and "psychedelic tourism" as human-driven threats, and she names decriminalization as an emerging threat in her testimony.[1]
• Private land. She says about 95% of Texas is privately owned and that peyote habitat in the United States is highly likely to be entirely on private land, which she sees as an opening for voluntary conservation easements.[1]

Mexico is not a spare supply

Terry writes that importing from Mexico is not a sustainable answer, because Mexico has its own shortages in some regions and its own Indigenous peoples who need peyote for ceremony.[3] Substituting another cactus is also not a neutral fix: curanderos in northern Peru state that San Pedro in the Andes is already considered endangered by Peru's Ministry of the Environment.[4] See Peyote vs San Pedro.

Law and who may handle peyote

A U.S. federal regulation says Schedule I does not apply to the nondrug use of peyote in bona fide religious ceremonies of the Native American Church. It also requires anyone who distributes peyote to the church to register every year.[5] A news report says Texas allows several registered distributors to harvest and sell, but only to church members with proven Native American ancestry.[2] Laws change, other places differ, and this is not legal advice. See Religious Exemptions.

What Indigenous-led efforts are doing

NACNA began researching ways to conserve peyote and its habitat in 2013, according to the news report.[2] In 2023 Dr. Davis asked Congress for five million dollars for "Peyote Habitat Conservation Initiative Demonstration Projects", saying that this would not be enough but is a starting point.[1] We did not find the outcome of that request. Terry notes that proposals such as greenhouse cultivation by the church would need new regulatory guidance and that at least one petition was then under consideration.[3] We describe these as policy ideas only.

Why this matters beyond one cactus

Peyote shows how interest from outside a community can add pressure to a resource that community depends on. See Indigenous Traditions, Ethics and Conservation.