An initiative, aimed at striking a balance between the need to sustain and conserve the natural medicinal plant resources and the growing demand for products from traditional healers, will be launched in Mpumalanga at the end of this month.

The Medicinal Flora Co-operative (MCF) is an initiative that combines conservation, capacity building and profit generation and is the product of five years of research.

The propagation of indigenous medicinal plants at the Co-op Centre will be the core of a project that will create sustainable employment opportunities within the communities, a cutting edge research and development component, a database of relevant knowledge resources and international capital for the province and the country, said MCF chairperson Louis Arthur.

Mpumalanga is home to a vast range of medicinal plants, many of which, according to Arthur, were in danger of extinction because of both over exploitation and destruction of the natural habitat.

Arthur said the Co-operative would work to reverse these trends through making available seedlings of the highest quality for introduction into the market to lessen the pressure on wild populations and in time to repopulate impoverished areas.

The World Health Organisation estimates that 80% of the world’€™s population relies on traditional medicine for their daily health needs with the figure even higher in Africa.

Arthur said the current market in medicinal plants in South Africa alone was estimated to be R900-million a year with income from medicinal plants in KwaZulu-Natal equal to one third of the province’€™s maize harvest.

In most cases rural women harvest these plants that are rapidly being depleted and sell it to traditional healers.

Arthur said they had identified 18 medicinal plants that constituted the most important species and of these five that made up the bulk of the trade.

These included:

– Siphono Chilus Aethiopicus (Wild Ginger) ‘€“ Respiratory infections such as colds and flu.

– Alepidea Amatymbica (Kalmoes) ‘€“ Immune booster and also for kidney and liver dysfunction.

– Warburgia Salutaris (Pepper Bark) ‘€“ Burnt and used as an aroma treatment for sinuses and to cleanse the body.

– Hypoxis Hamerocallidea (African Potato) ‘€“ A diaretic and system cleanser. Good for arthiritis and rheumatism.

– Bowiea Volubilis (Climbing Onion) ‘€“ A heart and muscle stimulant.

All the plants are immune system boosters.

The seedlings produced will be sold to member growers (such as rural women) who will plant them out and grow them to maturity at their own cost.

It was also a requirement from most traditional medicine organisations that medicinal plants be grown organically.

The produce will then be marketed by the Co-operative to the traditional medicine practitioner organisations and other end users.

Arthur estimated that the first seedlings from the facility would 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 said the National Parks Board and Mpumalanga Parks had also granted MCF access to parent stock from the parks and other pristine areas under their control.

The facility is situated on about 30 hectares of land outside White River with access to ample water and rights to a canal and two dams. The centre is capable of producing over one million seedlings a month.

Arthur said plans were in place to expand the initiative to four other conservation zones: the Pemba-Imhambane region in Mozambique, the Zambezia region in Zambia, the Cape region and the Namibia-Karoo region.