Native America Calling: Protecting peyote

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Tuesday, October 4, 2022

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Protecting peyote

Practitioners in the Native American Church (or as we like to call it, the other NAC) officially won the right to use peyote as a religious right in 1994.

Now they are working to secure environmental protections for the plant that is losing habitat to development, land use policies, and climate change. Among other things, NAC representatives call for setting aside land where peyote grows.

Today on Native America Calling, Shawn Spruce looks at the practice and the politics of peyote.

A peyote cactus. Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Guests on Native America Calling

Jon Brady (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara), president of the Native American Church of North America

Dr. Martin Terry, board member for the Cactus Conservation Institute and professor emeritus of Sul Ross University

Steven Benally (Diné), elder and founding member of the Indigenous Peyote Conservation Initiative (IPCI), co-organizer of the Annual Spiritual Pilgrimage

Sandor Iron Rope (Oglala Lakota Oyate from the Pine Ridge agency), founding IPCI board member.