Current and future demands for traditional medicine, use of plants for other purposes (e.g. fuelwood), and current and past land use practices are rapidly reducing indigenous forest and savannah vegetation. The barks, roots, bulbs, seeds and fruit are used for medicine, resulting in the plants either being killed through intensive harvesting or reproduction being reduced.

An increasing local, national and international demand, combined with rapidly decreasing natural resource base, is necessitating urgent intervention. Medicinal plant practitioners (healers, traders and gatherers) are well aware of the decline in availability of a range of medicinal plants. Traditional healers and others in the trade understand that there is a need to grow, and sustainably manage the use of, the resource base and are willing to participate in initiatives from which they will yield future benefits – both income and access to species.

Bark products constitute a third of plant material used in traditional medicines. Indications are that the supply of bark to the medicinal plant trade is not sustainable. However, projects that have seen cultivation as a solution have focused on fast growing herbs and bulbs that can be harvested within two to three years, because trees require 10 times the time to produce significant bark harvests. It is in response to this problem that the idea was conceived to pilot a community-based project in the Bushbuckridge area of South Africa that focused on trees valued for their bark.

The project is co-funded by the Small Grants Programme (UNDP-GEF) and the DWAF/Danida Participatory Forest Management Project. This project builds on knowledge and experience gained - and extends the work done - on another DWAF/Danida project (the Community Forestry Project in the Bushbuckridge Area).

The purpose of the project is to promote the conservation, sustainable use and cultivation of threatened forest and woodland tree species that are valued in the medicinal plant trade for their bark. The project’s approach to achieve this is as follows:

Tree species that are: a) scarce but in high demand in the medicinal plant trade and, b) have similar bark and leave chemical constituents are identified. Thereafter the trees are cultivated for leaf production as an alternative medicinal resource to bark.

Sites that afford the most optimal cultivation conditions per species are selected. The species are planted as part of an agro-forestry system.

The leaves are harvested and products developed through locally appropriate processing methods, in line with medicines control and certification requirements, and according to protocols that protect and enhance local knowledge.

The project forms part of a larger initiative made up of similar enterprises that are linked through a joint marketing and trade initiative, ensuring significant returns at the local level.

The project thus combines the imperatives of biodiversity conservation of forest and woodland species, traditional medicine development, enterprise development and agricultural development.

Medicinal plant practitioners cultivate popular but threatened medicinal plants where the leaf/bark properties are alike

Medicinal plant practitioners generate an income through the sustainable harvesting of leaves and supply plant products to the existing plant trade.

The primary stakeholders are two traditional healer groups. The other stakeholders include conservation authorities (in particular Mpumalanga Parks Board), the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) and other relevant government departments, and the Sehlare Participatory Forest Management (PFM) forum.

Medicinal plant practitioners require a range of plant species that are found in indigenous forests, grasslands and woodlands. For this reason one project is in the communal woodlands of Bushbuckridge and the other at Salique in the Mariepskop State Forest Complex.

The first group consists of traditional healers from the Vukuzenzele Medicinal Plant Garden and Nursery Association (near Thulamahashe) that was established about five years ago through the DWAF/Danida Community Forestry Project in the Bushbuckridge Area. The second group is made up of healers from villages bordering the Mariepskop State Forest Complex and who, this year, established the Bophelong Medicinal Plant Association.

Given their experience the Vukuzenzele group act as mentors for the Bophelong healers. The two Associations have also formed a collaborative, mutually supportive partnership.

AWARD works closely with DWAF in facilitating project activities with both groups of traditional healers. The activities include:

Developing people’s capacity will contribute to the sustainability of the project. Participants undergo training that includes business administration, project management, propagation, cultivation, harvesting and processing. Training also includes developing an understanding and knowledge of sustainable natural resource use/management practices. Exchange visits form part of capacity development and serve an extension purpose. Capacity will also be developed through a participatory approach in the implementation of project activities.

The training, and the process of developing their Constitutions, ensures any income will be fairly dispersed among the Associations’ members.

Linkages with other similar initiatives, as well as the close involvement of DWAF, also contribute to the sustainability of this project and ensure information dissemination and exchange.

The project builds on the concept of conservation through production. The harvesting of leaves, rather than bark, will contribute to a sustainable supply of medicinal plant material for the traditional medicine enterprise and, at the same time, to biodiversity conservation. In addition, people will have greater access to medicinal plant products for their health, well-being and material needs.