Lucy Benally, Dine (aka Navajo) from the Dine Nation, located in the 4-Corners area of the United States of America. She is of the Tabaaha (Edgewater) Clan, born for the Ashihii (Salt) Clan, Maternal Grandftaher is of the Taachiinii (Red Streak running into the water) Clan and her paternal grandfather is of the Bit’ahnii (Folded Arm ) Clan. Married to Steven S. Benally with three children and three grandchildren. With a BS. Degree in Education, M.A. in Bilingual Education, and as a Retired Educator, she is a founding member of the Youth Committee with Azee’ Beenahagha of Dine Nation in educating Dine Youth on Peyote conservation, reconnection and instilling essential life skills and information on Peyote way of life for their sustainability, stability and security. A firm believer in the conservation, protection and preservation of sacred plant medicines.

Miguel Evanjuanoy Chindoy is a member of the Inga people from Putumayo, Colombia. He was born in a beautiful hilltop village part of an Indigenous territory named Yunguillo, where the local cosmovision and collective work are the pillars of community life. Miguel is a community leader and environmental engineer and has been devoted follower of yagé (ayahuasca) medicine since his childhood years. He acts as a spokesperson for the Union of Indigenous Yage Medics of the Colombian Amazon (UMIYAC). Specifically, his work focuses on the role that Indigenous spirituality plays in territorial defence and environmental conservation. He is also interested in how yage medicine practiced by local, Indigenous traditional healers contributes to peacebuilding, the improvement of community health, and the reconstruction of the social fabric in war torn rural Colombia.

Recently Miguel has been speaking internationally about the impact that development models based on extractive economy and on the depletion of earth’s vital resources are having on the Amazonian biocultural ecosystems. On behalf of his organization and community, he is also taking a stand against cultural appropriation and the indiscriminate commercialization of Indigenous practices and sacred plants, with the claim that this “marketed spiritualty” is negatively impacting both Indigenous peoples and urban users alike.

Jamela Neslie Ntsame Mboumba lives in Libreville, Gabon. She lived and studied in Gabon and also in Ghana, where she graduated in management and marketing, so she is fluent in both French and English. Jamela was initiated in the Mbiri and Dissoumba traditions when she was eight years old. Since then she has been a practitioner and dancer in the Dissoumba tradition, having performed in several countries. Jamela has been collaborating with the Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund since 2022.

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Victoria Anahí Ochoa from the Yaqui tribe is an activist, land and water protector, born and raised in Vicam, one of the eight Yaqui towns in the state of Sonora, Mexico. Anahi is a mother of two little boys, whom she is committed to raise with respect towards life and profound love for their culture and roots. Anahi also holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and has worked as a psychotherapist for the Mexican ministry of health. She is also the president of Yoomomoli Civil Association formed by Yaqui women. Anahi is currently the director of the Intercultural Yaqui Medicine Clinic, the first clinic in Mexico and the world that offers entheogenic medicine and treatments within the public health system. 

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Anahi’s commitment to the biocultural conservation of Toad, Incillus Alvarious, is rooted in her belief that to remember who we are, we shall harmonize our relationship with the earth and promote the prosperity of native spirituality through the practice of traditional medicine that tends to our health in a bio-spiritual way. In this way, we will harmonize and heal our relationship with our Indigenous peoples and their territories towards the protection of water. The result will be the protection of life in all its forms. Once our Indigenous cosmovision is healed and having re-established our leadership, we will be able to build inter-tribal alliances based in a intercultural approach that will birth a social political model aligned with nature. Once the ancestral knowledge that has been forgotten as a result of systemic violence has been remembered, conserved, and preserved, we will be able to weave reconciliation and promote a culture of peace. Finally, we will be able to provide light into the illusion of separation to our society, both local and global, to remember that there is no division between nature and humans. Unfortunately, and given her passionate activism work in the last decade, Anahi and her family have been at risk, harassed and threatened.

Anny is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Human Ecology, in the department of human development and family studies. Over the past 15 years she had the opportunity to work in a variety of therapeutic programs in Mexico, the US and Costa Rica including, most recently, a treatment center in Baja, Mexico that was using ibogaine to aid in the treatment of substance use disorders, where she introduced the use of 5-MeO-DMT derived from the Sonoran Desert toad (Incilius alvarius) as a complement to ibogaine. Doing this work was deeply meaningful, but also personally troubling given how it has contributed to the exploitation of the toad populations in her native Sonora. Seeing first-hand the therapeutic effects of the 5-MeO-DMT experience motivated her to pursue graduate school to research this therapeutic potential in a more rigorous way, and to connect with an interdisciplinary team of experts, along with several non-profit organizations, to explore avenues for toad conservation and protection in its endemic habitat.

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Over the past several years she has been collaborating with Yaqui tribe leaders and activists, as well as international organizations (e.g., Riverstyx foundation) and academic institutions to support the vision of establishing an Intercultural Medicine Clinic in Yaqui territory. At this innovative clinic, substance use disorders and other mental health conditions are treated with the aid of psychedelic medicines in culturally adapted ways, all within a framework of inter-tribal alliances, for, and by indigenous peoples under the auspices of Mexico’s Department of Public Health.