San Pedro Conservation, Trout and Sugden

Harvested Trichocereus with exposed core.

After hearing Laurel Sugden's presentation from ESPD55 and her podcast with Jesso, I felt I needed to learn more about San Pedro conservation. Laurel suggests that it is not only specific clones that are threatened by wild harvesting and that the entire species of Trichocereus peruvianus is at risk in Peru. I’ve been working under the assumption that drawing attention to San Pedro reduces pressure for Peyote - the idea that I could be drawing attention to a threatened species was concerning.

I got in touch with Keeper, seeking more information on this issue. This was his response;

There are two things ongoing. The one which gets the most attention is mass harvesting for exportation of dried outer flesh pieces or powder. A great many people outside of Peru use this for mescaline extraction. Carlos Ostolaza told me of an even worse threat. Namely stands of San Pedro in and around urban areas in Peru are being deliberately destroyed (not used but destroyed) and replaced by gardens and Opuntia ficus indica for food use.

I find the claim of an extinction threat odd considering where these grow. I've seen literally hundreds of photographs where most of the visible peruvianus could not be accessed without mountain climbing gear and great personal risk. Commercial harvesters are going to go

for the 'low hanging fruit' of easily accessed plants. Extirpation on a local basis for easily accessed and harvested plants I can easily buy. Also, pachanoi is not native to Peru and cultivated stands by nature would be more susceptible to loss as there is no wild reservoir.

As for use of cacti, these now grow all over the world in temperate climates so there is no reason for pressure on Peruvian plants except from people buying quantity of dried flesh for mescaline extraction or consumption. Most people I know who use cacti prefer to grow their own.

T. pachanoi, bridgesii and peruvianus are all immensely renewable resources. Relying on wild harvests from another country like Peru to provide already processed dried outer flesh is not unless people in Peru are also engaging in correspondingly large scale propagation. Lack of the latter is as important of a factor as is the harvesting for export. It is wrong to just fault the purchasers when the distributors have been harvesting and promoting their product for around 20 years that I have witnessed. It would not have become a commodity if not offered by more than a couple of Peruvians so the picture is a collaboration between Peruvian harvesters and Western consumers. It is wrong-minded to present this as purely western exploitation, but it is also not sound to think of this as a renewable resource unless there is corresponding propagation efforts. Lack of that, while Peru is feeding dried cactus flesh to the rest of the world, much of it clearly bound for drug extraction, is what makes this a problem.

Keeper has since put me in touch with Carlos Ostalaza, a Peruvian cactus expert living in Lima. I’m actually planning to interview Carlos tonight, hopefully I’ll release the interview within the next week or so. Follow The Mescaline Garden Podcast to keep up to date.