Indigenous Reciprocity Initiative of the Americas: Agency and Autonomy | Sacred Plants II скачать в хорошем качестве

Indigenous Reciprocity Initiative of the Americas: Agency and Autonomy | Sacred Plants II

Sacred Plants in the Americas II April 23, 24 and 25, 2021 Speaker: Joseph Mays With an abundance of research linking forest loss to the emergence of disease, an understanding that Indigenous-managed lands harbor greater biodiversity than wildlife preserves, and the unique potential of traditional plant medicines to alleviate suffering, members of the psychedelic community need to support Indigenous groups still navigating a legacy of colonization and exploitation. Far-reaching, non-governmental conservation organizations have high infrastructural costs that often prevent support from reaching the most vulnerable. This necessitates a way to facilitate direct donations to local, grassroots initiatives that lack access to large institutions. With a recognition of the inextricable connection between biological and cultural diversity, Chacruna launchedthe Indigenous Reciprocity Initiative of the Americas (IRI). Through a network of relationships with trusted organizers, we have created an Indigenous-centered, community-driven list to represent a range of projects addressing everything from food and environmental health to land-tenure, reforestation, and cultural conservation, including educational, economic, and institutional support. IRI is the product of working in direct contact with Indigenous leaders and small, non-profit coordinators who prioritize the autonomy of local people. Rather than imposing Western ideas of sustainable development, the goal of this initiative is to promote community-led, grassroots projects designed and implemented by local Indigenous people to address their own self-determined needs. Some of the most salient lessons psychedelics teach us stress the significance of our interrelationships and the importance of reciprocity; IRI honors those lessons by offering a channel for giving back directly, in a way that fosters lasting, long-term opportunities for healing and resiliency. Joseph Mays earned a Master of Science in Ethnobotany from the University of Kent upon researching responses to globalization by indigenous Yanesha of central Peru. After graduating with bachelor’s degrees in biology and anthropology from Virginia Commonwealth University, he traveled to the Ecuadorian cloud forest where he completed an ethnobotanical survey of Camarones and published a medicinal plant guide for the Jama-Coaque Ecological Reserve. Joseph studies the relationship between biological and cultural diversity, and the way culturally-conditioned views of reality influence approaches to the environment. He presented a lecture entitled, “Visionary Plants and Thinking Forests in Biocultural Conservation (Exploring ontology in human-environment relationships in the Amazon)” at London’s Breaking Convention in 2019. He is a member of Chacruna’s Ayahuasca Community Committee.