Morning Star Conservancy Inc

Morning Star Conservancy has monitored the extraction and decline of peyote populations since the 1980s. Observing the alarming rate of depletion and the absence of meaningful conservation protections, MSC began developing an alternative conservation strategy. There is a need to support Indigenous-led conservation efforts through land stewardship, cultivation, and community education, the peyote populations can be protected while simultaneously ensuring sustainable ceremonial access for Native American Church members.

MSC has already initiated an ex-situ conservation program by rescuing peyote plants that would otherwise have been removed from the wild and replanting them outside their native habitat in Arizona, where state laws are more supportive of conservation and cultivation.

Over the past three years, MSC has successfully:

• cultivated thousands of peyote seedlings

• established seed-producing mother plants

• created a living conservation collection with plants from different regions