Scientific publication (e.g., journal articles and book chapters independently peer-reviewed)
LIMITATIONS TO NATURAL PRODUCTION OF LOPHOPHORA WILLIAMSII (CACTACEAE) III. EFFECTS OF REPEATED HARVESTING AT TWO-YEAR INTERVALS FOR SIX YEARS IN A SOUTH TEXAS (U.S.A.) POPULATION
Illegal collecting and land use change affect several sub-populations. Commercial harvesting by religious groups in the U.S has drastically decimated sub-populations and the plant has become less available through time because often the whole plant rather than the edible part is removed. In addition harvesting is excessive (Terry et al. 2011). Land use change for agriculture is a significant threat, as the land is completely ploughed, thus eliminating all vegetation including L. williamsii and its seed bank.
The plant is used to make ointments which are produce at a large scale and are widely available in Mexico, studies on the composition and pharmacology of such ointments are under-way (M. Terry pers. comm. 2013).
Name
Emma Hemmerlé
Scientific Name
Lophophora williamsii
Common Name(s)
Peyote
Type of Use
Extractive (i.e., the entire organism or parts of the organism are removed from its environment)
Does this use involve take/extraction of
Only parts or products of the organism (e.g., feathers, leaves, branches, eggs, nuts)
Details of parts/products taken
Harvesting was performed using the best known technique: removing only the crown from the top of the plant
Local people (e.g., individuals, communities, co-operatives)
National / local private sector
If more than one box ticked, please provide more details
The harvested crowns of peyote are collected and sold by licensed distributors to the Native American Church (NAC) for religious use as protected by U.S. law.
Is the use part of a strategy to generate conservation incentives, to finance conservation, or to improve tolerance/stewardship?
Unknown/not recorded
Is there evidence that the use is affecting the conservation status of the species? HIDE
Yes – use is negatively affecting the status (e.g., population is declining; extraction effort is increasing)
Is there evidence that the use is affecting natural selection?
Unknown/not recorded
Is there evidence that the use is affecting poaching of illegal wildlife trade?
Unknown/not reported
Is there any evidence that this use of the species is having a knock-on effect on the status of non-target species
Unknown/not recorded
Unknown/not recorded
Details of assessment carried out
At the end of the 6th year of the study, average volume of living crown tissue per plant was significantly and substantially lower in the plants harvested every two years than in the once-harvested plants and the unharvested controls. The average volume of once-harvested plants was 27% lower than that of the controls, although this latter difference was not statistically significant. The modal number of crowns per plant varied with treatment and over time; in the plants harvested every two years it underwent a progression from 1 to 2 to 3 to 1 in response to successive harvests. The results of this study indicate that a six-year recovery period, following the harvesting of peyote in natural habitats, is probably not long enough to ensure long-term sustainability.
It is now abundantly clear that the current rate of harvesting of peyote from wild populations is not sustainable; six years is not long enough to wait after a population of peyote is harvested before going back and re-harvesting the population, if the goal is a sustainable regimen of harvesting.
Has a valuation of financial flows from this use at the site/national/international level been recorded
Terry, M., Trout, K., Williams, B., Herrera, T., & Fowler, N. (2014). LIMITATIONS TO NATURAL PRODUCTION OF <em>LOPHOPHORA WILLIAMSII</em> (CACTACEAE) III. EFFECTS OF REPEATED HARVESTING AT TWO-YEAR INTERVALS FOR SIX YEARS IN A SOUTH TEXAS (U.S.A.) POPULATION. Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, 8(2), 541–550. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26549404
During the fifth and sixth years of this ongoing experimental study of a peyote population, we saw few changes in the behavior of never-harvested (control) plants. Once-harvested plants continued to recover from harvesting, but plants harvested every two years continued to experience lowered survival rates, and showed a reduced capacity to produce new crowns;
Threats/pressures impacting the species at the scale of this record