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| KTHPA SANParks staff at Nkuhlu Enclosure (Photo: Cath Traynor) |
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| KTHPA discussing medicinal plants with SANParks staff (Photo: Cath Traynor) |
The Kukula
Traditional Health Practitioners Association (KTHPA) of Bushbuckridge, South Africa
visited Kruger National Park’s Skukuza Indigenous Plant Nursery earlier this year. The Kukula were
invited by Michele Hofmeyr, the Manager of the nursery after she attended the
Kukula’s Biocultural Community Protocol (BCP)
Revision Workshop.
The aim of the visit was to explore areas of mutual interest: South African National Parks (SANParks) is developing a list of medicinal plant species
of interest to communities in the bufferzone areas of the park, and KTHPA are interested to access propagules of medicinal plant species that only occur
within the park.
Members of
the Kukula spent an afternoon in the nursery, looking at the existing stock of
medicinal plant species, learning how the different species are propagated, and
discussing which species may be suitable for KTHPA to propagate
themselves. The following day, Nursery staff joined the Kukula on a walk in the
Nkuhlu Enclosure, a 139 ha fenced area consisting of dense woody vegetation
thickets along the Sabie and Crocodile Rivers. The KTHPA members identified species of
particular interest, and SANParks staff collected specimens so that
scientific names could be ascertained.
The nursery
kindly donated seedlings and plants to the Kukula, including saplings of the
pepper-bark tree (Warburgia salutaris),
this is a highly sought-after medicinal plant, which is critically endangered,
and one that the nursery is cultivating on a large-scale.
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| KTHPA at SANParks Skukuza Indigenous Plant Nursery (Photo: Cath Traynor) |
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| Michele Hofmeyer, SANParks Skukuza Indigenous Plants Nursery Manager sharing her knowledge regards successfully germinating different plant species (Photo: Cath Traynor) |
Natural
Justice, together with partners K2C and Wits Rural Facility are supporting the Kukula
Traditional Health Practitioners to revise their BCP, and to utilize it to constructively
engage with external stakeholders such as SANParks. Running throughout South
Africa’s legislation on conservation is the balance between conservation on the
one hand and sustainable use for the benefit of communities on the other.
Through collaborations such as these KTHPA hope to both conserve
biodiversity and to advance the health of their communities through their
traditional healing practices.
