The International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research, and Service (ICEERS) is a non-profit organization (NPO), headquartered in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain).
ICEERS is dedicated to transforming society's relationship with psychoactive plants by engaging with some of the fundamental issues resulting from the globalization of ayahuasca, iboga, and other ethnobotanicals.
[1] Dedicated to turning challenges into opportunities, their vision is that of a future where society's relationship with these plants is transformed – where every individual and each community is granted the right to pursue healing and self-empowerment, where indigenous cultures are respected, and where bridges are built between traditional knowledge and science.
[1] ICEERS is dedicated to bridging the ethnobotanical knowledge of indigenous peoples with modern science and therapeutic practice, responding to the urgent need for efficient tools for personal and social development.
[2] According to their website, the organization's mission includes: The International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research & Service (ICEERS) was founded on May 20, 2009, by Benjamin De Loenen (director of the 2014 documentary Ibogaine - Rite of Passage) as a philanthropic, tax-exempt non-profit organization (charity) dedicated to the integration of ayahuasca, iboga and other traditional plants as therapeutic tools in modern society, and the preservation of indigenous cultures that have been using these plant species since antiquity.
[4] According to its founder and executive director, Benjamin de Loenen, "Over time more people joined the team with scientific and drug policy reform backgrounds, and we started to broaden our scope and address the subject matter from these different angles.
[citation needed] ICEERS has also seeded community self-regulatory processes in different countries[15] fostering collective responsibility, ethics, safety and efficient strategies towards regulation.
[citation needed] This service provides integration psychotherapy sessions for people in challenging situations after experiencing non-ordinary states of consciousness.
[36][37][38][39][40][41] In 2017, ICEERS received an EU Commission grant for a project called PsychēPlants, through which they developed a series of reports[42] about psychoactive plants, fungi and animal secretions as well as a risk-reduction website to share this important information.
And, importantly, it's an opportunity to shine a light on the intrinsic connection between the globalization of ayahuasca and the on-going resistance being waged by indigenous peoples against the destruction of sacred land – the Amazon rainforest – so essential for ecological balance.
The cultural, social, and political contexts surrounding the human relationship to this plant and its alkaloids, are complex and ICEERS has sought to bring careful consideration to the impacts of their globalization.
ICEERS has been working to develop strategies to leverage more interest and capacity for efforts to conserve and regenerate the plants and indigenous knowledge systems of the Amazon, Gabon and beyond.
ICEERS is initiating the first-ever clinical trials with ibogaine for opioid dependence[57] in collaboration with Tre Borràs Cabacés from the Hospital Sant Joan de Reus.