Igor Domsac | June 23, 2025
For the first time in history, the Indigenous peoples who have safeguarded traditional knowledge about ayahuasca will take center stage in an international forum with real decision-making power. In September 2026, the Catalan city of Girona will host the first World Ayahuasca Forum, a meeting that will mark a historic milestone in the recognition of the central role played by Indigenous communities in global processes related to their knowledge, territories, and spiritual practices.
Organized jointly by the Yorenka Tasorentsi Institute and ICEERS, the meeting will bring together representatives of various Indigenous peoples from several continents, as well as researchers, health professionals, facilitators, human rights defenders, and policy makers. The goal: to establish a space for equitable dialogue where the challenges, tensions, and opportunities posed by the contemporary expansion of ayahuasca in both traditional and non-traditional contexts can be addressed in a pluralistic manner.
This forum is part of a nearly two-decade-long process of internationalization of the debate on ayahuasca, marked by key meetings, such as the five editions of the Indigenous Conference on Ayahuasca and the three editions of the World Ayahuasca Conference, organized by ICEERS, which brought together thousands of people in Ibiza (2014), Rio Branco (2016), and Girona (2019), and helped to put the complexity of the practices and worldviews of this medicine on the global map.
A process with deep roots
This meeting is the result of a collective process that has been developing for decades. The initiative was supported by Indigenous representatives during the Fifth Indigenous Ayahuasca Congress, held in Brazil in 2025, where the need to create a global forum between Indigenous peoples and other actors involved in the current circulation of ayahuasca was expressed. “The assembled peoples reject the uncontrolled commercialization of ayahuasca and denounce the growing commodification of their knowledge and practices. They demand that governments and international institutions respect the right to free, prior, and informed consultation, and that mechanisms for the protection of Indigenous intellectual property be strengthened,” they stated in their closing letter.
The Girona forum seeks to transcend the usual model of academic or scientific conferences, shifting toward a form of governance that is built from the bottom up, from the territories and from the links between communities. But in addition to its community focus, this meeting also breaks with a frequent dynamic in psychedelic events: fragmentation into sectoral bubbles. Unlike many conferences, the forum is committed to creating spaces for transdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue. The aim is for Indigenous and non-Indigenous representatives, as well as professionals from different sectors, to listen to each other, debate and learn from each other outside their comfort zones.
The event was presented at the Psychedelic Science Conference 2025 in Denver, which took place from June 16 to 20 at the Colorado Convention Center. This fifth edition brought together more than 7,000 attendees and featured around 500 speakers on topics including therapy, ethics, safety, and the use of medicinal plants such as ayahuasca. The opening ceremony included a tribute to Indigenous traditions through a land recognition ceremony and prayers, emphasizing that plants have their own spirit and must be “respected at all times.” This multicultural and respectful approach underscored the urgency of empowering Indigenous peoples in global decisions that affect their traditional practices and knowledge.
Global challenges, community responses
The expansion of ayahuasca beyond its native territories faces growing challenges ranging from environmental preservation to the defense of cultural rights. Pressure on natural resources has triggered initiatives to promote sustainable harvesting and prevent ecological imbalance. At the same time, the rise of urban retreats has raised concerns about cultural appropriation without adequate connection to the communities that originated them. This dynamic is exacerbated by the sustained growth of tourism to Amazonian regions and other Indigenous areas, where more and more people are traveling in search of ayahuasca experiences. While this phenomenon generates economic income, it is also creating cultural tensions, transformations in traditional practices, and ecological risks due to the overexploitation of plants and territories that are not always prepared to handle global demand of this magnitude.
Furthermore, the legality of ayahuasca varies considerably from one country to another. Although it is not listed as a controlled substance in international treaties, in practice there have been arrests and trials in various countries, creating tensions between legislation and religious or cultural rights. On the other hand, cases of malpractice in ceremonies—including breaches of trust or protocol errors—have highlighted the need for solid ethical frameworks and professional training for facilitators.
Faced with this complex landscape, the Girona forum aims to build a coordinated, multisectoral community response. Discussions will include the definition of intercultural ethical protocols, the establishment of ecological conservation strategies, and the development of regulatory proposals that recognize the rights of Indigenous peoples, ceremonial contexts, and public health priorities, fostering dialogue between legislators, scientists, and traditional leaders.
The role of ICEERS
For ICEERS, participating in the co-organization of this forum represents an opportunity to deepen its institutional mission: to accompany dialogue between cultures, contribute to risk reduction, promote public policies based on human rights, and protect traditional practices from stigma, criminalization, and the effects of biomedicalization. In a context where there is increasing pressure to extract compounds, register patents, and translate ancestral knowledge into biomedical frameworks without the real participation of its custodians, the forum allows for the reinforcement of an approach that prioritizes ethics, reciprocity, and respect for the collective rights of Indigenous peoples. It also provides an opportunity to question models of cultural appropriation and to defend the integrity of ritual practices in their traditional contexts and in their legitimate adaptations, always in connection with those who have sustained this knowledge for generations.
Over the past fifteen years, ICEERS has led pioneering scientific studies on ayahuasca, developed training programs on good practices, provided legal assistance to hundreds of unjustly criminalized individuals, and facilitated tools such as the Ayahuasca Defense Fund and the AyaSafety course. Its experience will be an integral part of a process that requires intercultural sensitivity, articulation skills, and active listening. ICEERS’ track record in generating scientific evidence, developing good practice guidelines, and organizing multilateral spaces, such as the World Ayahuasca Conference, is a fundamental contribution to this forum’s ability to have a real impact and maintain its continuity over time.
A path toward shared governance
The Girona forum is not a point of arrival, but rather the beginning of a new stage. Its medium-term objectives include the creation of a permanent structure for coordination between Indigenous peoples and institutional alliances. One example is the Council of Indigenous Spiritual Leaders (CLEI), which is expected to be consolidated in 2027 as a representative space that articulates Indigenous voices with allied networks on an international scale. This type of initiative seeks to sustain, beyond the event itself, a continuous process of collaboration, advocacy, and decision-making around traditional practices with psychoactive plants and their place in the contemporary world.
It is about imagining a future in which the expansion of ayahuasca does not reproduce colonial or mercantile logic, but is guided by the principles of respect, reciprocity, self-determination, and justice. Where ancestral knowledge is recognized as a legitimate source of wisdom, and where decisions affecting the plant and its practices are not made without those who have cared for it for generations.
In Girona, in 2026, Indigenous peoples will not only share their message: they will also come to listen. This is a meeting of worlds, where ancient traditions and contemporary knowledge come face to face, without hierarchies or appropriation. The forum will set a precedent: not as an isolated event, but as a starting point for a new way of building dialogue, regulation, and care around medicinal plants. Because globalization without listening means extractivism, but with reciprocity it can become alliance.
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