Protecting biodiversity in South Africa with a healthy garden of medicinal plants

South Africa's Eastern Cape communities rely heavily on traditional healthcare but over exploitation of wild medicinal plants is threatening one of the planet’s most important biodiversity regions.

By harvesting medicinal plants, traditional healers are protecting threatened wild plant species in South Africa's thicket biome.
Source: Georgina McAllister.

South Africa's Eastern Cape is recognised as one of the planet’s most important biodiversity hotspots, with all seven of South Africa's biomes converging in this one Province.

It is also the most vulnerable province in the country with much of the population relying on traditional medicines harvested from the wild as their primary source of healthcare.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that around 70% of the population in South Africa uses traditional medicines, and a study of the area found that 525 tonnes of medicinal plants are used annually — most harvested unsustainably.

With the prevalence of diseases such as AIDS, TB, diabetes and hypertension, the country has seen an increasing reliance on traditional healthcare, causing strain on the dwindling populations of medicinal plants and on the traditional healthcare sector as a whole.

"A loss of this magnitude to biological and cultural diversity presents a severe threat to community health and traditional knowledge in the Eastern Cape as well as the wider region," says Georgina McAllister, Programme Director at GardenAfrica and one of the project partners in a horticultural initiative designed to protect the threatened biome.

GardenAfrica, Umthathi Training Project Trust and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, are partners in The Umthathi Africulture Project, which aims to facilitate a shift from the use of wild harvested species in South Africa’s Thicket biome through the acceptance of sensitively propagated and grown plant material.

With funding from the Defra Darwin Initiative, the team has established a 10-hectare plant nursery site on the outskirts of Grahamstown for growing culturally valuable medicinal species.

As well as promoting sustainable harvesting, the project runs training and advocacy workshops on biodiversity, HIV/AIDS, legal and sustainable harvesting and legislation such as the National Environmental Management and Biodiversity Act and the Traditional Health Practitioners Act, under which traditional health practitioners are expected to register. 

McAllister says endorsements from the traditional health sector have been achieved by gaining trust in cultivated materials, and has been pivotal to the success of the project to date.

Plans are now underway to expand the project by establishing an ex-situ conservation area for growing ‘wild’ plants species which can be transplanted into the collection area for supply to healers, harvesters and traders.