Graeme Wild | Chief Executive Officer | Sappi Southern Africa | mail me |
We quite rightly talk about the importance of planting trees. We talk about their role in absorbing carbon, protecting biodiversity and supporting healthy landscapes.
These are important conversations. However, after many years working in forestry and the bioeconomy, I have come to believe that we sometimes make the relationship between people and trees sound shallower than it really is.
Trees, communities and traditional knowledge
A tree does not exist in isolation. It is part of an ecosystem that depends on healthy soil, available water, biodiversity and the people living within that landscape. In many rural communities, indigenous trees and plants also have a far more immediate value. People use them as medicine, for cooking and heating, and as sources of income. They also form part of cultural practices and knowledge passed between generations.
Traditional medicine provides a powerful example. According to our research, an estimated 27 million South Africans use traditional medicine. The trade supports at least 133,000 income-earning opportunities, many involving rural women. Around 771 plant species supply the traditional medicine market. The market has been estimated to be worth R2.9 billion annually.
This is not a small or peripheral part of South African life, particularly in rural areas. Yet many of the plants on which the trade depends have historically come from the wild. People have often collected them through potentially unsustainable harvesting practices.
As demand grows, that pressure becomes more difficult to manage. People may remove bark and roots faster than plants can recover. They may also remove some plants entirely. As supply falls, prices increase. Eventually, the people who depend on these species face the consequences of their scarcity.
Finding a sustainable alternative
If somebody derives an income from a plant, or a traditional healer requires it for their practice, telling them that the species is threatened does not make that need disappear. This is where our experience with the Rare, Threatened and Endangered Species Programme has been particularly interesting.
The programme began in 2013 with our seed funding. It initially focused on Warburgia salutaris, commonly known as the Pepper-bark tree. At the time, demand for the species for traditional medicine had placed considerable pressure on wild populations. The programme started with just 40 trees and a practical question. If people were going to continue using Pepper-bark, could we find a way for them to do so without steadily destroying the resource?
That meant understanding how people used the plant. It also meant learning how to propagate it successfully and working with traditional healers and communities on alternative harvesting practices. Removing bark and roots can damage or kill a plant, for example.
Traditional medicine as source of income
Leaves and stalks may provide a more sustainable source of medicinal material. We used plant propagation techniques developed to multiply commercial tree species. These techniques successfully multiplied the initial 40 trees into hundreds of thousands of new young plants. The programme then made those plants available for distribution through mandated organs of state.
This enabled an increasing supply rather than simply trying to suppress demand. More than 105,000 Pepper-bark trees have now been distributed through Kruger National Park and its partners. A further 73,000 have been distributed through Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife since 2019. Monitoring by distribution agencies has recorded a survival rate of approximately 85%.
For me, however, one of the most interesting figures in the programme is not the number of trees distributed. It is the economic value that can begin to emerge once those trees become established within communities.
Turning conservation into an economic opportunity
In Hazyview, a participating community can earn approximately R1,000 per tree annually from sustainably harvested leaves and stalks. The community has developed a target of 2,500 medicinal trees to plant in its community. That represents potential income of R2.5 million a year. The programme estimates considerably greater potential as the model expands across communities in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and around the borders of the Kruger National Park.
The tree is no longer something that an environmental organisation is asking a community not to touch. Instead, it becomes a renewable resource that can provide medicinal material and generate an income.
There is an important distinction here. We should not ask traditional healers to save threatened trees on our behalf. If the plants on which their practices depend disappear, they have as much to lose as anybody else. The challenge is to make sure they have access to a sustainable alternative before that happens.
This thinking has shaped the way the programme works. Rather than relying primarily on enforcement, it uses social ecologists who already work within communities and understand local needs. Traditional healers help identify plants of concern. Healers who have changed their own harvesting practices also participate in workshops with other plant users. These workshops deal with practical issues such as propagation, seed collection, sustainable harvesting and water management.
There is good reason for approaching it this way. When a medicinal plant becomes scarce, its price rises. At some point, communities struggle to afford the services in which it is used. Traditional healers also face an increasingly expensive and unreliable supply of the material they need. Overharvesting is therefore not only a biodiversity problem. It eventually becomes a business, healthcare and community problem as well.
Making conservation relevant to everyday life
Perhaps this is also where some of our wider environmental messaging misses its audience. Those of us working in business and sustainability spend a great deal of time discussing biodiversity, natural capital, climate resilience and the bioeconomy. Much of that conversation takes place in boardrooms, at conferences and, increasingly, on platforms such as LinkedIn. There is always a danger that we end up talking primarily to people who already agree with us.
The conversation becomes more meaningful when conservation connects with something that matters in people’s everyday lives. Protecting a medicinal plant makes sense if it protects the supply on which a traditional healer depends. Sustainable harvesting makes sense if a tree can continue generating an income instead of being destroyed for a once-off harvest. Propagation makes sense if a community can grow a resource that would otherwise become increasingly expensive to buy.
This does not mean reducing biodiversity to its financial value. However, it shows the importance of recognising financial value when it exists. It also means taking into account the realities of people who live alongside and depend on these resources.
The approach is now being extended beyond Pepper-bark. The programme is working with or researching species including African Cherry, Black Stinkwood, Broad-leaved Wild Quince, Fever Tree and Assegai Tree. Many more species have also been identified through community workshops.
In conclusion
Forestry exists within landscapes shared by communities, indigenous vegetation, wildlife and other industries. It depends on functioning water systems, healthy soils and biodiversity.
As new demands are placed on land, water and other natural resources, these inter-related dependencies will become more important. We should have a deeper conversation about the trees and plants we are already losing. We should ask why they face pressure and what would make their protection sustainable.
Traditional medicine shows why that conversation matters. Protecting indigenous plants can support biodiversity while sustaining livelihoods, healthcare practices, cultural knowledge and community income. Ultimately, the goal should not simply be to plant more trees. It should be to build landscapes where people and trees can continue to thrive together.
