Georges Gassita is a Gabonese state civil servant and a board member of ROOTS Fellowship Foundation. Views are his own.
When I traveled from Libreville to Aspen this summer, I spent two days on airplanes for three days of conversations. It was worth every hour.
It was an honor to be at the Aspen Psychedelic Symposium wearing two hats. I’m a state civil servant of Gabon. Furthermore, I’m also a board member of ROOTS Fellowship Foundation, a U.S. organization committed to protecting Indigenous knowledge through supporting the next generation of wisdom keepers in Gabon, Kenya and Colombia.
One of my responsibilities in Aspen was to explain that iboga has become a political matter in Gabon. It is no longer simply a traditional medicine or a subject of scientific curiosity.
Today, responsibility for its governance reaches the highest levels of the Gabonese government. As international demand grows, my country is working to build a relevant framework that protects our cultural heritage while engaging responsibly with the rest of the world.
An emerging industry on fire
The rush toward entrepreneurship and leadership in this space is creating a climate that feels, to many people in Gabon, less like partnership and more like pressure. Gabon is watching this closely, because the consequences are real.
Since the recent executive order on psychedelic medicine in the United States, the price of iboga seedlings in Gabon has risen sharply, from roughly $4 to $17 per unit, depending on the product and market. Gabon is working urgently to clarify the value of these resources and regulate the trade efficiently in a way that serves both the people who provide this medicine and the people who seek it.
Urgency cuts both ways
Move too slowly, and the illicit market fills the gap. Move carelessly, and we risk exactly the extraction we are trying to prevent.
Word of an American executive order, filtered through rumor and translated imperfectly, has created real fear inside Gabon that our forests will be stripped, that our healers will be sidelined, that decisions will be made about our heritage without us.
Part of my responsibility, and part of why this dialogue matters so much, is simply to continue honest communication with all sides to clarify what these policies intend and prevent the kind of misunderstanding that breeds resentment on one side and indifference on the other.
We do understand that urgency. But there is a real tension between the desire for synthetic molecules that can be manufactured at scale and the necessity of preserving the traditional protocols (the ceremony, the preparation, the relationship with a healer) that have always accompanied this medicine.
A molecule extracted from its context is not the same medicine our healers have practiced for generations. That leads to another concern: everyone is looking at psychedelic medicine, and very few people are looking at the traditional knowledge that made it possible. For generations, Indigenous and local communities in Gabon have protected, practiced, and transmitted the knowledge surrounding iboga.
Without that stewardship, there would be no modern scientific interest, no pharmaceutical research, and no international conferences debating its future.
I have spoken with elders and traditional healers who remain genuinely willing to share this medicine for healing purposes, but they are clear that willingness is not the same as exploitation. Fair compensation, often in the form of tangible improvements to village life, is what makes the difference between the two.
In Aspen, I was encouraged that people genuinely wanted to engage with this idea. Scientists, lawyers, treatment providers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers all wanted to understand how cultural reciprocity could become something real.
At the same time, I recognized that everyone wants to lead this conversation. Global interest in iboga is growing so quickly that many organizations are attempting to define its future.
That is precisely why Gabon must participate actively. If we do not help shape this conversation, others inevitably will.
Gabon’s governance models are evolving
Until this year, iboga was managed as a forestry commodity. A 2004 decree (No. 01029/PR) placed it, like other non-timber forest products, under the sole jurisdiction of the Ministry of Water and Forests. That framework treated iboga as a technical and commercial matter. It had nothing to say about research, diplomacy, or the traditional knowledge attached to the plant.
Decree No. 0239/PR of May 22, 2026 changed this. Iboga and its derivatives are now classified as national strategic heritage, and any activity involving the plant, from research to export, requires prior authorization from the Ministry of Culture after binding review by a new interministerial technical commission. Approval is no longer a routine decision by forestry officials. It is a collective political decision made at the center of government.
As a representative of Gabonese administration, I faithfully presented Gabon’s current governance model for iboga at Aspen. That is my responsibility.
As someone who works closely with Indigenous communities through ROOTS Fellowship Foundation, we continue discussing how best to protect the rights of traditional healers, how communities should provide consent for the use of their knowledge, and what role the government should play in certifying that consent.
Coming out of Aspen, I carried home three concrete recommendations for my government: that we initiate formal diplomatic engagement with the United States specifically on ibogaine, that we expand awareness among our own national stakeholders so fewer decisions are made out of fear or rumor, and that we establish cultural reciprocity itself as the foundation of our diplomatic posture on this issue.
Organizations like ROOTS Fellowship have an important role to play here as well, serving as a legitimate, formal bridge between Gabon and the outside world. That kind of structured engagement, rooted in real institutional relationships, accomplishes far more than the scattered, unverified activity that too often fills this space online.
In my view, one principle should remain central through all of this: consent to use traditional knowledge must originate with the traditional communities themselves. The government should certify that consent. These conversations are already taking place within Gabon, and I am optimistic that our governance will continue to evolve in ways that strengthen both cultural preservation and international cooperation.
The need for a living library
If we truly believe in ethical innovation, we need a broader framework for protecting traditional knowledge while enabling responsible research to ensure that discovery does not become another form of extraction.
This is also why I have begun proposing something more permanent: community-led registries, and physical books written in our own local languages, that can preserve this knowledge against the threats of globalization, displacement, or simple natural disaster. Oral tradition is resilient, but it is not invulnerable, and we have already lost too much when an elder healer passes without a successor fully trained.
Traditional schools like Y’azo Leyissa Academy, led by Bwiti healer Tah Mombo, remain essential for the hands-on, experiential side of this transmission. But a registry would give us something we do not currently have: a permanent record, built and owned by the communities themselves. Building it properly will take collective decision-making within these communities, and outside funding for the technical work of illustration and translation.
This is some of the most urgent preservation work we can do.
The future I hope to see is one in which governments, scientists, Indigenous communities, nonprofit organizations, and responsible companies work together as true partners. The purpose is not to slow progress, but to ensure that progress remembers where it began.
From the editors of Psychedelics Today
Common questions about iboga and Gabon’s new law
What is Gabon’s new iboga law?
Decree No. 0239/PR of May 22, 2026 classifies iboga and its derivatives as national strategic heritage. Any activity involving the plant, from research to export, now requires prior authorization from Gabon’s Ministry of Culture after binding review by an interministerial technical commission.
Why have iboga prices risen in Gabon?
Following the April 2026 U.S. executive order accelerating research into psychedelic therapies including ibogaine, prices for iboga in Gabon rose from roughly $4 to $17 per unit, driven by anticipated international demand.
Is ibogaine legal in the United States?
No. The executive order directs federal agencies to accelerate research and access pathways, but ibogaine remains a Schedule I substance. Research authorization is not the same as legal access.
What is the difference between iboga and ibogaine?
Iboga refers to the plant Tabernanthe iboga, used ceremonially in Gabonese Bwiti tradition for generations. Ibogaine is a single alkaloid extracted from it and studied for treating opioid dependence and PTSD. As Gassita argues, the molecule removed from its cultural context is not the same medicine.
