Indigenous medicine and drug policy groups join forces to form a new nonprofit. They want to promote and preserve the use of traditional medicines such as psychedelic mushrooms, peyote and iboga.

The Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund aims to raise $20 million to support the use of traditional medicines around the world. For example, it would help the Yaqui tribe in Mexico restore their traditional uses of peyote, ayahuasca, and toad. Some tribesmen who struggle with alcohol and suicide believe that traditional medicines can be helpful.

The fund’s co-director, Miriam Volat, said the fund is about giving back.

“I’d like to see in Oregon where, if you really benefited from psilocybin, you grow it yourself… that you also think, ‘Wow, this makes my life better. What if I just support people who have this heritage relationship with it?’”

Oregon’s new psilocybin system will open to the public early next year.

A statement from the fund said traditional medicines are under threat from climate change, commercialization, overfishing and cultural appropriation.

“By partnering with funders around the world, and informed by robust environmental and community-based assessments, the Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund is building alliances with Indigenous organizations for a new philanthropic paradigm of right relationship and trust,” Volat said.

In addition to raising funds to support conservation projects in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Gabon, Mexico and Peru, the fund aims to educate the public, especially the emerging Western psychedelic industry, about threats to traditional medicines.

“We are committed to ensuring the resilience of traditional biocultures and mitigating the damage of mounting pressures of psychedelic interest among non-indigenous people, as well as ecological crises,” Volat said.