BIO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY PROTOCOLS AS A
COMMUNITY-BASED RESPONSE TO THE CBD
PART I / CHAPTER 2
We have witnessed in the last decade a steady worsening
To ensure that we can continue to provide for our communities,
in rainfall, such that this year is the worst drought
we require continued access to medicinal plants, which
conditions that any of us have seen in our lifetimes.
means that over-harvesting in the communal areas must
We are being pushed to the absolute limits of existence.
be tackled and access to conservation areas improved.
Climate change is forcing us to face a number of interlinked
challenges that are compounding each other.
We want to work with traditional authorities to better
regulate the access to communal lands by muti [medicinal
For hundreds of years we depended entirely on our livestock
plants] hunters. Their over-harvesting has to be better
for our survival, drinking their milk and blood, and eating
regulated or else there will be no medicinal plants for us
meat on special occasions. While many of us have built
to harvest from the communal areas. We want to explore
permanent homes, many are continuing to move according
how we can contribute to minimizing the environmental
to the seasons to find the best grazing, or to avoid diseases
degradation being carried out by the herbalists, either
or raiders. Because droughts are becoming more frequent
through community education or establishing closer
and severe in Kenya, we are increasingly concerned that
local controls.
the exotic breeds cannot cope well with such conditions.
As the level of inter-breeding rises, we now realize that the
Now that we are clear about the procedures for accessing
traits of the exotic breeds may be undermining our ability to
plants from Mariepskop [a conservation area], we want to
continue our way of life.
be recognized by the Department of Agriculture, Forest
and Fisheries (DAFF) as both contributing to and benefiting
All of the above raises questions about the long term
from the region’s biodiversity and to work with the
tenability of our way of life. We are deeply concerned that
Department to establish a system that facilitates our
these associated challenges are increasing in their severity
access to the resources under its management. We call on
to the point that our whole way of life will be threatened.
the DAFF to instigate a process towards establishing
Already many pastoralists in the North East of the country
such a collaborative partnership, and to explore the
have been forced to abandon their livelihoods. The loss of
establishment of a medicinal plants conservation and
our way of life would also adversely affect our indigenous
development area on Mariepskop to increase the in
breeds, much of our culture, our various types of traditional
situ cultivation of the most important medicinal plants.
knowledge and the bonds between us, our land and the
region’s environment and living resources. The changing
We also want to evaluate how to replicate successful
climate is heavily affecting us and so does the
community-run medicinal plants nurseries in the area,
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encroachment on our land.
and seek the K2C Biosphere Committee’s assistance in
any future projects of this kind. We are considering
3.9 Ways Forward
beginning discussions with local traditional authorities
as well as with the local government to evaluate whether
When the communities came to address their challenges
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we could have some land set aside for our purposes.
and to set out their endogenous development plans, the
two main issues they wanted to resolve for the protection
All the communities set out how they wanted to secure their
of their ways of life were access to resources (medicinal
bio-cultural futures. The Raika went one stage further and set
plants or grazing areas) and to ensure that their TK is
out a series of commitments in their BCP regarding the
not misappropriated or used in ways incommensurate
conservation of the local forests. They state:
with their values. The very specific nature of their visions was
notable, with the Bushbuckridge healers providing the
following example:
23. Supra note 2.
24. Supra note 11.
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