A new project to save medicinal plants from extinction will initially concentrate on five plants that are fast-growing and popular among healers
Fiona Macleod An ambitious project was launched in Mpumalanga on December 1 to grow high volumes of traditional medicinal plants by cloning them from DNA.
The main goal of the project, launched at a hi-tech propagation centre near White River, is to reduce pressures on wild stocks of muti plants, which are being plundered by traditional healers and pharmaceuticals manufacturers.
Appropriately, the project was launched on World Aids Day. One of the plants it aims to grow in vast quantities is the African potato, a popular treatment among HIV/Aids patients because it boosts the body’s immune system.
In laboratories previously used by Mondi to propagate exotic forests, the Medicinal Flora Cooperative plans eventually to clone more than a million seedlings a month.
These will be grown at the centre, as well as by commercial farmers and communities, and then distributed to healers throughout Southern Africa.
The seedlings will be cloned and cultured from DNA taken from parent plants bought from national parks and registered indigenous nurseries, says Louis Arthur, a conservationist who is driving the project. Arthur has been researching demands and trends in traditional muti markets over the past two years, and says many of the more popular treatments are facing extinction.
“Wild ginger, which is used to treat respiratory problems, is extinct in KwaZulu-Natal,” he says. “Two years ago African potatoes were plentiful in the wild; not today, they are disappearing at an alarming rate. And the prices of these plants have more than doubled in the markets over the past two years simply because you can’t get them any more.”
The World Health Organisation estimates that 80% of the world’s population relies on traditional medicine for their daily health needs. This figure is even higher in Africa.
Research by the South African Institute of Natural Resources shows that the trade in medicinal plants in this country alone is worth about R900-million a year. Income from muti plants in KwaZulu-Natal is equal to almost one-third of the province’s maize harvest.
But this roaring trade sees the removal of thousands of tons of plants from the wild each year. It is not only threatening the plants with extinction, but also the livelihoods of rural communities and gatherers who depend on the harvest.
Arthur says the Medicinal Flora project will initially concentrate on five plants that are fast-growing and popular among healers. Besides African potatoes and wild ginger, the centre will produce thousands of climbing onions, a bulb used as a heart stimulant and diuretic; elephant’s foot, a bulb with a high cortisone content; and mkatazo, a rhizome used to treat respiratory diseases.
“The first seedlings from the facility will take six months to come on line, with a further two years for the first crops to come in from the farms and member communities,” he says.
Pharmaceutical companies have expressed an interest in the project, but the co-operative aims to saturate the local muti markets before exploring pharmaceuticals.
“Our labs will eventually have the capacity to process for international markets, but initially we want to focus on supplying fresh or dried material to traditional markets,” says Arthur.
The executive members of Medicinal Flora include former Mpumalanga premier Matthews Phosa; Sue Hart, head of the Nelspruit-based community conservation organisation EcoLink; and Harvey Tyson, former editor of The Star newspaper, who has become an ardent conservationist in his retirement.