Photo: Johan Lorenzen
l The Bushbuckridge BCP: traditional health practitioners organise for ABS in South Africa 105
The facilitation group draws up a code of ethics to supplement the BCP.
shared vision for the BCP.
• Capture and reflect to the group decisions
that are owned by the healers.
• Ensure participatory and fair practices
throughout the process. Encourage all
members of the association to express their
views and be involved.
The facilitation process was supported
by sharing clear information about the
environmental legal frameworks in which
the traditional healers operate. Furthermore, it was ensured that by the end of
each facilitated meeting during the process,
decisions and processes to date were
adequately summarised, tasks for the
period between meetings were clearly
articulated, and feedback opportunities for
such tasks were included at the beginning
of the follow-up meeting.
Based on the information collected,
members of the facilitation group drew up
the BCP with the assistance of Natural
Justice. The BCP was then presented to,
commented on and accepted by the wider
membership of the association. The BCP
sets out:
• their biocultural values;
• how they connect their communities
through their culture to biodiversity;
• some detail of their traditional knowledge;
• the threats to their livelihood posed by
biodiversity loss and the taking of their TK
without the sharing of benefits;
• how the community plans to improve
conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plants;
• information for people wanting to access
their TK and medicinal plants; and
• the links between their values and
concerns and the rights the healers have
under national and international laws.
The BCP is considered a living document by the traditional healers and they
periodically review the aims and challenges
outlined in their original document.
Through the process of developing the
BCP, the traditional healers have formally
organised themselves as Kukula Traditional Health Practitioners Association and
developed their own constitution. The
association achieved registration under
South African law as a not-for-profit organisation in 2011.