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Thanks for all of your support!
Thanks to our $1,000 and $4,000 match grant donors. Both goals reached!
Your donations will help us:
- Create the Ayahuasca Health Guide ($8k): integrating online feedback into a go-to, public resource to guide seekers and practitioners to make ayahuasca as safe as possible in the jungle and beyond;
- Extend Amazon field research ($10k): helping our 9 Amazon researchers interview dozens more in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru and convene at least two additional roundtable meetings;
- Pilot test the Aya Health Guide ($6k): translating, training, and supporting centers & communities to implement safe practices and integrate results into the Aya Health Guide;
- Pilot test sustainable aya cultivation ($6k): learning with communities and centers how to best grow aya admixture plants to benefit forests and communities through higher yields, FairTrade principles, and better techniques;
- Grow communications ($5k): spreading the word with a better website, social media, and blog updates to connect with you so our work takes root globally.
Ayahuasca's reputation, habitat, legal standing, and very healing traditions are all at stake.
The ESC is working with many groups to define and recognize safe and sustainable ayahuasca across cultures.
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Help the ESC #ProtectAya
The ESC is here to help you and other seekers connect with providers of ayahuasca ceremonies who do so safely and with respect for the sustainable use of the plants. By donating you will help create the networks and the agreements that will guide you and others like you to these centers that are aligned with “The Ayahuasca Agreement” and provide safe and sustainable experiences for you and for fellow seekers. Invest in the future of ayahuasca now, for yourself, for other seekers, for the plants, the peoples, and for generations to come.
Your donations will help us:
- Agree, as a community, how to recognize the safe use and sustainability of ayahuasca;
- Expand dialogue with ayahuasca providers to better serve the growing global boom for safe and sustainable ayahuasca;
- Educate seekers like you to help ensure safer ayahuasca ceremonies;
- Improve access to fair and sustainably grown and harvested ayahuasca admixture plants with benefits to the communities who grow them;
- Understand and address the needs of Amazonian communities so they can develop sustainably in both local and global contexts.
We are working closely with ayahuasca community leaders to build agreement from the ground up based on wisdom both ancient and modern.
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Photo: Shaman from the desana ethnic group in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil: "The Chief" by Eduardo Fonseca Arraes licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
We encourage and facilitate dialogue between people who care about the future of traditional plants by holding a space where all can communicate as equals to recognize good practices for safer and more sustainable ethnobotanical cultivation, trade, and use.
The ESC's Ayahuasca Dialogues focus on safety and sustainability in ceremony spaces, communities, and forests.
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We define sustainability in three dimensions:
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The Ayahuasca Health Guide is how we are defining safety.
The
Health Guide is a comprehensive, open-source, community-led guide with up-to-date ayahuasca safety information. Your support helps us dedicate expert time to respond to and integrate all comments.www.AyahuascaHealthGuide.com
Your donations support our work on the Health Guide where you can have your say and have all your ayahuasca safety questions answered in one place.
In the last six months, our research team has conducted almost 100 interviews across the Amazon.
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Your donations will help us expand our research to reach more wisdom holders.
In August, we hosted our first Ayahuasca Dialogues Roundtable with support from the Peruvian government. With your donations, we will be able to host more roundtables across the Amazon to learn from and with practitioners, community leaders, NGOs, scientists, and many others.
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Photo from the first Ayahuasca Dialogues Roundtable meeting, August 2014, hosted by the Loreto Regional Government Department of External Commerce, Tourism and Arts in their maloca (ceremonial meeting building) and organized by the ESC.
This is just the beginning.
Our success in convening truly representative Ayahuasca Dialogues depends on you!
Help the ESC #ProtectAya
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Donate now!
When you donate early you'll be listed as a supporter when we launch the Ayahuasca Dialogues Report.
$8 donations receive an ESC sticker:
Three options for $20 donations:
Ayamazing Digital Media Package!
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Includes 3 Amazing Items:
A Film: "Neurons to Nirvana" a mind-blowing documentary about the resurgence of psychedelics as medicines and two ESC documents "The Ayahuasca Dialogues Report" and also "The Ayahuasca Health Guide" delivered right to your email!
Ayahuasca Vine or Chacruna Bush Plantings
Sustainably grown ayahuasca vine or chacruna bush planted by our partners at one of South America's most successful cooperatives.
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Above Left: Roldan Paredes, Executive Director of the Fundacion Amazonia Viva in Peru, partnering with the ESC to plant fairtrade and sustainable ayahuasca and chacruna and pilot test the Ayahuasca Health Guide.
Above Right: Marcial waiting for your support to plant the ayahausca and chacruna plants in the local forest.
PLANT MORE WITH THESE PERK PACKAGES!:
All the perks shown below are here -->
$60
2 Chacruna Plant and 2 Ayahuasca Vine plantings plus one ESC Sticker
$80
3 Charcruna Plant and 3 Ayahuasca Vine plantings plus one ESC Sticker
$130
4 Chacruna Plant and 4 Ayahuasca Vine plantings plus one small Shipibo Textile and one ESC Sticker
$150
5 Chacruna Plant and 5 Ayahuasca Vine plantings plus one Botanical Illustration Poster of Ayahusca and Chacruna (see below) and one ESC Sticker
#ProtectAya Ultimate Planting Package
$500
25 Chacruna Plant and 25 Ayahuasca Vine Plantings plus one large painted Shipibo textile and an ESC Sticker
International Shipping of certain items may be additional.
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Above Left: The community's new ceremonial maloca in the morning near the medicinal plant garden. Aya and chacruna to be planted in the forest behind.
Above Right: Each plant gets its own marker for verification and is maintained for three years so it can live on its own. Each donor is issued a certificate linked to the marker.
$40, $250 or $3,000 donation:
Botanical illustration, either as a poster ($40), limited edition print ($250) or original ($3000).
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Above: Botanical illustration of P viridis and B caapi. Snag your own copy of what is bound to be a classic! $40 for a poster, $250 for one of 20 limited edition prints signed by the author, and $3,000 for the original. Please note that international shipping may be additional - we will let you know!
$50, $100, $750, $1000 or $2000:
Original Shipibo textiles lovingly hand-made in Peru. (International shipping may be additional)
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Custom ESC Logo textile is now finished!
$150 or $350:
$150 for a signed softcover copy of ESC Special Advisor Dennis McKenna's book Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss or $350 for a hardcover copy with a personal note from Dr. McKenna. (International Shipping may be additional)
$8,000
Dinner with ESC Special Advisor Dennis McKenna
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Your support makes all the difference.
Your donation in this key moment helps decide the future of ayahuasca.
By contributing, you help us strengthen our already unprecedented collaborations between people who rely on, grow, and administer ayahuasca.
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Dr. Dennis McKenna, ethnopharmacologist and ESC Special Advisor, says this about our work:
“The ESC has a chance to create new models for responsible use of traditional medicines. Every year, tens if not hundreds of thousands of people are going to the Amazon to experience [ayahuasca's] healing properties in ceremony. Most of these people experience profound healing change, but some people are getting hurt. If we fail to do something, we could leave the plant and its traditions vulnerable to increasing government intervention. Every negative headline is a threat to the future of this medicine.”
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Dr. Rick Doblin, MAPS Executive Director & ESC board member, says:
“The formation of the ESC and start of the Ayahuasca Dialogues is a much needed effort to wisely and safely guide the expansion of the use of ayahuasca both where it was created in the Amazon and to the rest of the world.”
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Support the ESC and its partners today
We are organizing the Ayahuasca Dialogues to steward ayahuasca safely and sustainably into the heart of global culture.
With your support, we will:
Pioneer a major open-source Ayahuasca Health Guide draft and consultation. This guide will help seekers stay safer, and help centers and practitioners provide the safest experience for participants. www.ayahuascahealthguide.com
Organize Ayahuasca Dialogues roundtables in South America, gathering Amazonian stakeholders to discuss best practices. (Read about our first roundtable in Iquitos in our blog here.)
Pilot test safety and sustainability approaches with our partners in the San Martin bioreserve in Peru.
Launch our first sustainability and safety research report, based on feedback at the World Ayahuasca Conference: The report will inform and amplify the sustainability and safety message to a broader audience and potential partners. It presents the research thus far, demonstrating the benefits of action, and the risks of inaction. (Check back in late October to read a copy of the final report)
Administer an online engagement platform to collect comments about the draft Ayahuasca Agreement and Health Guide here.
More about the ESC:
The ESC team brings a global professionalism from multiple disciplines to give the ayahuasca community an opportunity to define safety practices and sustainability issues with global consistency and local application, respecting the traditions of the stewards of this medicine while also preparing ayahuasca for its new role as a pillar of global culture.
We are a US-based nonprofit with researchers across the Amazon who are engaging in dialogue with key stakeholders like ayahuasca center owners, policy makers, indigenous community leaders, environmentalists, and ayahuasca growers. We were co-founded by friends of 20 years whose lives have been transformed by ayahuasca and other plant medicines
We are planting medicine and saving lives: By donating to our campaign, you'll be helping our partners plant hundreds of ayahuasca vines and admixture plants. You'll be helping us reach out deeper into the jungle and engage an ever-increasing diversity of stakeholders, deepening our understanding of the needs of the people and make the resulting Agreement broader and more useful to seekers and practitioners.
Our partners:
These organizations are actively supporting this fundraising campaign and our vision of safer and more sustainable ayahuasca...
The ESC Global Team
Our team of dozens of researchers, advisors, and full-time professionals brings personal passion and professional experience from the fields of ethnobotany, anthropology, qualitative research, economics, sustainable development, drug policy, sustainable tourism, agronomy, horticulture, safety protocols, indigenous rights, religious studies, and access and benefit sharing, among others.
Read about the Ayahuasca Dialogues Research Committee;Read about the Ayahuasca Dialogues field researchers;Have questions? Contact us.
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The Challenges We Are Facing
Ayahuasca is a traditional medicine expanding into the rest of global culture. It brings about its fair share of risks and challenges.
We are addressing these challenges by:
Recognizing local practices and working hard to hear the voices of traditional healers and practitioners and respond to the needs of local stakeholders
Bridging cultural divides by focusing only on the core issues of sustainability and safe use rather than extraneous issues
Being transparent and engaging with relevant stakeholders at every stage of our work so that everyone has the chance to be involved![]()
In Addition to Your Donation, Please Share #ProtectAya Through Social Media:
Share this campaign with your friends and colleagues using the Indiegogo share tools!
Tweet: Learn about what the @ESCouncil is doing to #ProtectAya
When you’ve donated: I just donated to #ProtectAya
Share our website: www.ethnobotanicalcouncil.org
