DURBAN, June 8 (ANA) – Traditional healers in eThekwini were amongst the first countrywide to take part in a one-day workshop intended to encourage compliance and scientific validation in the traditional medicine field.
A joint effort by the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife and eThekwini Municipality, the biodiversity compliance awareness workshop saw a conference room full of traditional healers gather at the Royal Hotel on Thursday.
“Your knowledge, which we respect, has to be validated by science; we can’t do away with science,” Dr Khosie Kiviet, the DEA’s director for its biodiversity section, told the crowd.
According to the department, the national initiative was needed after increased complaints from the public about regulations for threatened or protected species (TOPS) being flouted at muti markets nationwide.
“We are here because we recognise culture and tradition and are willing to give it proper recognition, we also need to protect the environment so that it is not harmful to ourselves or our children,” said Sonnyboy Babela, chief director of compliance: monitoring, for the DEA.
He said that as a developing nation, enforcement could only take place on those who deliberately contravened legislation, and while ignorance of the law was not an excuse for contravention, the department was working with stakeholders to ensure legislation was fully understood.
Traditional healer and deputy chair of the traditional health practitioners’ council, Sazi Mhlongo, said that in the past, various enforcement agencies were too quick to arrest practitioners who were unaware that plants they were gathering were endangered or threatened.
“People need to be told what is endangered and if those plants are only endangered or threatened in one province and not another,” said Mhlongo.
It would also be viable for the department to investigate allowing healers to propagate certain types of threatened species that were necessary for their trade, he said.
The workshop included an overview of legislation, a slide show on TOPS species and distribution of leaflets identifying plant species that were off limits.
“It is very important that we provide some kind of scientific validation to traditional knowledge and find a synergy between the two,” Kiviet told the African News Agency (ANA). “We do respect and acknowledge traditional knowledge, but at the same time, we need it to be subjected to scientific evaluation.”
It was the duty of scientists and government to “sell” scientific validation within the traditional healing industry, added Kiviet. Some of the plants used in traditional medicines were bioactive when scrutinised in a laboratory, but potential toxicity issues also had to be addressed, she said.
According to a report titled “Economics of the Traditional Medicine Trade in South Africa”, the industry was estimated to be worth R2.9 billion annually, had 27 million consumers and employed about 133,000 people, a large percentage of which are rural women.
– African News Agency (ANA)
