Mama Toto's Iboga Plantation

What begins as a seed becomes a forest. The forest sustains itself.

Mama Toto is a powerful spiritual leader within the Bwiti tradition in Gabon. Following guidance she received from ancestors in visions and dreams, she is on a mission to establish an Iboga plantation to restore spiritual and ecological balance to her land. This project supports her in developing a sustainable, ethical, and legally compliant source of Iboga, governed under her leadership and authority. The impact will create a reliable, land-based stream of income for her village, ensure that resources for rituals and knowledge sharing — especially for women — are accessible, and respond to increasing pressure on wild Iboga.

Iboga is a tree native to the Congo Basin and is central to the Bwiti tradition, where it is known as "the sacred wood." Within this tradition, Iboga is held as a teller of truth consulted for its timeless wisdom and guidance. Many people outside of this tradition describe Iboga as a psychedelic because of the increased perception and expanded awareness that results from ingesting its root bark, or as "plant medicine" because of its ability to heal trauma, emotional wounds and addiction. While the Bwiti do sometimes refer to Iboga as medicine, this is only one of the many ways Iboga is woven into the fabric of their lives.

Who We Are

Two organizations anchor this project — SCOOPS Bouyedi Bwa Moutema, led by Mama Toto, and Alāhnë Initiative, whose role is to resource and walk alongside her mission. Together they bring complementary strengths: deep ancestral knowledge and community authority on one side, and facilitative capacity and access to funding networks on the other.

SCOOPS Bouyedi Bwa Moutema (BBM) was founded by Mama Toto in response to a vision given to her by the Bwiti. In Nzebi, Bouyedi Bwa Moutema translates to "Wisdom of the Heart." Rooted in spiritual practice and ancestral knowledge, their mission is to cultivate and share the wisdom of the heart — the ability to be attentive, care for others, and understand the needs of the community. Their objective is to create value chains that benefit the community and show that the Bwiti is rich, powerful, and brings people together.

Mama Toto's Plantation sits within Alāhnë's pathway of Understanding Where We Come From — an exploration of Indigenous wisdom rooted in mutual respect and relationality. Through this pathway, Alāhnë offers access to resources for Indigenous-led projects and walks alongside Indigenous communities as a learner and supporter. In doing so, we remain committed to noticing, naming, and unlearning the patterns that keep us disconnected — from each other, from the land, and from our shared humanity. The lessons that emerge through these relationships form the basis of what we call “The School of Unlearning” — an evolving body of learning intended to support others who feel called to engage with this work with humility, kindness, and respect. Learn more at alahne.org.

The Problem

Mama Toto's Plantation Project is an Indigenous-led, community-based initiative that responds to three interrelated challenges — both local and global in scope.

1. Ecological pressure on wild Iboga. Global demand has surged through a largely illegal and unregulated supply chain—illegally harvesting wild Iboga from Gabonese forests, often uprooting entire shrubs, and isolating ibogaine into a purified chemical product for export. These pathways of relating to the root misappropriate and strip Iboga from the cultural context in which it thrives, reducing access to mature root bark, raising costs for ceremonial practitioners, and undermining a spiritual practice that has persisted for generations, including during colonial periods when it served as a form of collective resistance. By 2018, the IUCN listed Tabernanthe iboga as a species of concern. Since 2019, Gabon has made it illegal to export Iboga unless cultivated on private land with proper authorization—but because few communities have the infrastructure or resources to meet these requirements, the system remains largely ineffective in practice.

2. Severed access to land. French colonial "regroupment" policies forcibly relocated forest communities to roadside settlements, severing their autonomy over traditional lands and territories — though their livelihoods and cultural identities remain tied to the forest. Today, Mama Toto and her neighbors must hike hours from their village to reach their plantations, carrying heavy loads of produce home in traditional baskets called pondzis. The journey is physically demanding, requiring strength, endurance, and abled bodies. With few other means of income, access to their land is critical for food security.

3. Exclusion of Indigenous women from conservation funding. Indigenous women like Mama Toto are central to biodiversity stewardship and knowledge transmission, yet remain chronically underfunded. Most funding mechanisms require measurable outcomes and key performance indicators that create structural barriers, requiring community members to adapt their practices to unfamiliar bureaucratic frameworks. This can reshape leadership and cultural authority away from locally defined priorities and conflict with Indigenous ways of relating to the land, nurturing Iboga, and sustaining social and ceremonial life.

Our Response

Where extractive supply chains uproot and isolate, Mama Toto’s plantation is rooted in relational ways of being in the world.

Grounded in ancestral guidance and community stewardship, this project will establish a sustainable, legally compliant, cultivated source of Iboga on Mama Toto’s private land. It will create direct pathways to the plantation, easing the transport of produce and strengthening cultural continuity. It will also generate a reliable stream of income for Granvier Village — ensuring Iboga remains grounded in the Bwiti tradition that has sustained it for generations.

This project is aligned with Gabon’s 2019 legal framework on Iboga cultivation and the Nagoya Protocol — a 2010 international agreement on fair and equitable benefit-sharing with communities who have historically stewarded biological resources and traditional knowledge. Mama Toto’s plantation offers a replicable model for other Indigenous communities seeking to participate in legal Iboga cultivation systems.

Alāhnë’s relationship-based funding approach is designed around community-defined priorities rather than external frameworks. By providing direct access to resources to Mama Toto, we honor the lived wisdom of Indigenous women and affirm that Indigenous sovereignty and biodiversity conservation are inseparable.

From the first harvest alone, the plantation is projected to generate $444,444 in revenue for the community. Alāhnë will not take any portion of those proceeds — they belong entirely to SCOOPS BBM and the community.

Where We Are Now

The project is already underway. With roughly $10,000 raised, the land preparation phase is funded — and Mama Toto and her family are on the ground in Granvier Village, actively clearing and preparing the land. This summer, Alāhnë board members will travel to Gabon to participate in the ceremonial opening of the land alongside Mama Toto and her community — a sacred moment that marks the formal beginning of the plantation's life.

What comes next is the trees. All 4,444 seedlings — planted, tended, and grown into forest. Four is the number of the earth — of the four directions, four elements, four seasons. It is the number of foundations built to last. And 4444 is understood across traditions as a message from ancestors — the work is held, those who came before are guiding us forward. Your support makes the seedlings possible — and the seedlings make the forest.

How We Know It's Working

Success will be witnessed through the land itself — Iboga seedlings planted, tended, and thriving; pathways cleared and walkable; women working the land and generating income. Through the relationship — Alāhnë board members visiting Granvier Village annually, remaining accountable to the community rather than to a reporting schedule. And through the root — when Iboga grown on Mama Toto's land begins to move through the world legally, ethically, and in ways that honor the Bwiti, that is the fullest expression of what this project set out to do.

We recognize that meaningful impact stretches beyond numbers — how Mama Toto's community experiences this restoration will inform the project as it grows.

An Invitation to Plant

This story started in the forest of Gabon, in the dreams of a powerful woman, in the roots of a sacred tree that has quietly held the wisdom of humanity for longer than memory serves.

You are reading this because somehow — through whatever winding path brought you here — this story found you. In the Bwiti tradition, Iboga does not call those who are not ready. Neither, perhaps, does this work.

What is being planted in Granvier Village this summer is more than Iboga. It is a different way of relating to the earth, to each other, and to the wisdom that lives in communities the modern world has too often overlooked. It is an act of reciprocity — of seeing and honoring those who tend the land, keep the memory, and steward the biodiversity that sustains all life on Earth. It is a path back to the roots of ourselves. Because outside of time there is no distinction between indigenous and non-indigenous — there is only humanity. And within every human being, the knowing is already there. This plantation is an invitation to come back into contact with what we have always known — that life, full, abundant, and sacred, is available to us when we tend the soil from which we came.

This work is beautiful. And it is made possible by those who feel called to be part of it.