ABSTRACT
Through such developments traditional healers are rapidly recognizing the economic potential of their knowledge. This follows many years of traditional medicine being marginalized and traditional healers persecuted by colonial and apartheid governments. It also follows a long history of exploitation, initiated by colonial botanists who used traditional knowledge of plants to identify species of commercial potential, and the subsequent commercial development of South African species by foreign companies. Few if any of the benefits of such commercialization have been returned to the people from whom knowledge was derived. With the upsurge of interest in South African flora, it is crucial to redress this situation; but an array of complex constraints makes implementation of this requirement a difficult task.
