It’s not just about the permit – conserving wild ginger for people and nature
Helping local growers of rare plants to get permits, not only allows them to continue their important work legally, but ongoing positive engagement with traditional healers builds solid, relevant relationships with an influential stakeholder group, and leads to benefits for both people and biodiversity.
Some of the wild ginger growers in Mpumalanga and Limpopo who have been issued with permits and can now grow and sell plants from their home gardens with support from Kruger to Canyons Biosphere and SANParks
This past year was a positive one for wild ginger (Siphonochilus aethiopicus). Skukuza nursery in the Kruger National Park is making great strides in propagating this critically endangered plant. Additionally, SANParks, K2C (Kruger-2-Canyons Biosphere), MTPA (Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency) and LEDET (Limpopo department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism), have worked together to secure permits for a handful of home growers of wild ginger, enabling legal access for the growers to the traditional medicine market.
National biodiversity legislation aims to ensure the conservation and preservation of biological species. Permitting is one tool used by conservation agencies to regulate the use of, and trade in, biological species, in the interests of the long-term survival of species in the wild. However, in some cases, permit regulations are severe, difficult to comply with and expensive to purchase, dis-incentivising compliance, and leading to further illegal use and trade. For the ginger growers, receiving permits means that they can legally sell their nursery-propagated wild ginger, which in turn reduces the threats to wild growing populations.
Another upshot of the permitting is that ginger growers can sell plants to SANParks. The purchased plants are then donated to traditional healers adjacent to the KNP, as part of the KNP traditional medicine conservation programme. This is being done in a similar manner for the pepperbark tree (Warburgia salutaris). With the original intention, that the healers will grow them at home and will no longer need to purchase illegally-harvested plants from muthi markets, becoming a reality.
This article was written by Dr Louise Swemmer, Shoki Mafogo, Dimakatso Nonyane, Hope Morema, April Lukhele and Lyle Wiggins and originally published in the 2021/2022 Research Report.
