ABSTRACT
Introduction Despite the widespread use of modern medicines, the parallel role of traditional medicine remains popular in both rural and urban areas and among both wealthy and poor African communities in South Africa. A substantial body of literature exists which documents some of the salient characteristics of the trade and use of traditional medicines (Ngubane 1977; Cocks and Wiersum 2002; Cocks and Møller 2002; Cocks and Dold 2006). Mander (1998) estimated that 27 million people used indigenous medicine in South Africa in a decade. The use and trade of plants for medicine is no longer confined to traditional healers but has entered both the informal and formal sectors of the South African economy (Dauskardt 1990, 1991; Cocks and Dold 2000), resulting in an increase in the number of herbal gatherers and traders (Dold and Cocks 2002). The largely informal trade in traditional medicines forms part of multi-million rand ‘hidden economy’ in southern Africa, and it is now bigger than at any time in the past. It is certainly one of the most complex resource management issues facing conservation agencies, healthcare professionals and resource users in South Africa today (Cunningham 1997). Research points towards a trend of increasing harvesting pressures on traditional supply areas linked to a growing shortage in supply of popular medicinal plant species (Williams et al. 1997, 2000; Mander 1998; Dold and Cocks 2002). This poses a potential threat, not only to the millions of consumers who depend on these plants for medicinal or cultural reasons, but also to the livelihoods of the collectors, traders and traditional healers. When the sustainable use of natural resources is threatened by overexploitation, the cultivation of certain species may be considered as a partial solution. This has led to a revival of an approach that advocates the domestication of many indigenous plants (Leakey and Newton 1994; Leakey et al. 1996). In general, the process from wild harvesting to cultivation is a gradual one, and the opportunity to cultivate wild plants is largely facilitated by available knowledge and also by the cost effectiveness of cultivation compared to wild harvesting. The harvesting of wild medicines is an opportunity for the poor to make at least some income. When wild plants become scarce or unavailable, cultivation on a small scale, which does not require high financial inputs, could be an alternative
and more secure source of income. Schippmann et al. (2002) list a number of advantages of cultivating medicinal plants:
• Adulteration of the material can be avoided, because producers know in general what they have planted. In the long term, producers can select and develop desirable genotypes and thus increase the quality of the material.
