Doubleblind
Peruvian Torch Conservation
Despite its reputation, Peruvian Torch is affected by pressures any plant faces in the modern world: Cattle grazing, roads, mining, and climate change, which interrupts the delicate water requirements of the plant.
But there is extra pressure on Peruvian Torch: The cactus is a top choice among psychonauts because it’s thought to be more potent. Facilitators and retreat centers consume huge, but unknown quantities each year, and the Peruvian Ministry of Environment has issued a report on the export industry’s legal export of the cacti being 40 tons between 2009-2013. Current numbers on illegal export are also unknown. The report also lists both Peruvian Torch and San Pedro as “endangered,” but the Peruvian government has put no regulations in place.
Many locals with limited economic opportunities no longer use cacti as medicine. For them, a few dollars is worth the labor-intensive process of cutting and processing the plants into powder and bringing them to local markets, where vendors sell it for as low as a few dollars per kilogram. Some buy it as a travel souvenir. Others purchase the cacti in bulk for export. The nondescript green powder is marked as “cactus flour,” “sea shells,” or with the names of local herbs like “organic aloe vera.” The packs slip easily through customs and can be flipped online for hundreds of dollars per kilogram. Other powder ships direct to facilitators running ceremonies around the world.
Back in Peru, Orlovac recalls one traditional maestro dying in poverty of tuberculosis in the northern part of the country. The communities where the cacti grow natively have no schools, books, or healthcare. Orlovac contrasts this with facilitators in the United States, some easily clearing $1000 per ceremony, with not a cent returning to the people, culture, and land producing the medicine. “It is outside of balance,” he says, adding, “something that we learn from San Pedro is balance.”
Texting via Signal, an anonymous facilitator in the United States explains she gives individual San Pedro sessions for “comfort through grieving, to open my heart and keep it open” and, she says, “to strengthen my ability to love and be loved.” She tells me how to order cacti online describing photos in the catalog of thousands of cacti growing in nurseries in the sunshine of the Western states. “A lot are family owned” she says, “and the kids help.”
Distributors grow famous genetics from seeds gathered in South America in the 1900s. A potted cactus can arrive in the mail and she tells me distributors say there is an “adequate supply.” Owning the plants is legal in the states, but unless in an area of decriminalization, are illegal to process.
Read the article in detail at
The Quest To Preserve Peruvian Torch—By Planting One Million Sacred Cacti
