Credit: Johan Lorenzen
l The Bushbuckridge BCP: traditional health practitioners organise for ABS in South Africa 103
Medicinal plant nursery maintained by Kukula members.
in the east and 300 per square kilometre
in the wetter west, the population density is
already one of the highest in southern
Africa, and the population growth rate is
2.4%. Unemployment in the Bushbuckridge area is estimated at 63%. There is a
heavy reliance on the cash economy and on
State grants, mainly in the form of pensions
and child grants. Approximately 50% of
the adult male population and 14% of
women engage in migrant labour. The
average household income is R850 (about
US$110) per month.
The area is extremely biodiverse. It is
also culturally and linguistically one of the
most diverse in South Africa, with people
from different ethnic backgrounds and
language groups. For example, people
living in the same geographical areas speak
Pedi, Pulana (which is a mixture of Pedi,
Swazi and Tsonga), Tsonga and Swazi.
Many also speak English, Afrikaans or
Portuguese, given the close proximity to the
Mozambican border (Thornton, 2002).
Traditional health practitioners tend to
their communities’ physical, cultural and
spiritual well-being through traditional
medicine and cultural ceremonies. The
healers also hold various forms of traditional knowledge in relation to the uses of
their local medicinal plants. Through their
traditional practices of sustainable harvesting, the healers support the conservation
and sustainable use of these plants. Unfortunately, commercial-level harvesting of
medicinal plants for use in South Africa’s
cities threatens many of these plant species.
Access in government-managed protected
areas has been severely restricted due to
this overharvesting and local traditional
healers struggle to harvest the plants they
need. The healers also have concerns about
the use of their traditional knowledge (TK)
without their prior informed consent based
on a long history of bio-prospecting with
no benefits to the community.
Methods and processes
In 2009, Natural Justice was invited by the
K2C management committee and its partners to present and discuss
community-based approaches to access
and benefit-sharing (ABS) mechanisms,
including biocultural community protocols