JUST like the bushman and the Basarwa tribes who wander in the Kalahari Desert for hundreds of kilometres in search of water and nutritious tubers, twigs and game meat for survival, the BaTonga people of the Zambezi Valley have intimate knowledge of over 1 000 plants with immense medicinal uses to treat coughs, wounds, bites diarrhoea to name a few. In Binga, elders recalled how during the pre-colonial period land use was controlled through chiefs, lineage elders and spirit mediums. Various natural sanctuaries such as water sites, termite mounds and woodlands were utilised sparingly and protected for traditional medicines usage. Even urbanised indigenous Zimbabweans of today have strong social links to traditional medicines through their beliefs in witchdoctors and herbalists. However, the coming of Western culture whose habit of taking one thing from one culture and presenting it to others as their original product, African medicine has been no exception through biopiracy. Biopiracy is the theft of biological matter, like plants, seeds and genes. In the absence of laws regulating access to these resources, pharmaceutical, agrochemical and seed multinationals exploit Africa’s biological wealth and obtain rights of intellectual ownership to the resources and knowledge of communities. The blatant plunder of indigenous knowledge and genetic resources in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa by Western pharmaceutical companies continues unhindered. Since colonisation, international private and public enterprises (or their intermediaries) who are actively collecting, sampling and acquiring traditional knowledge for the development of pharmaceutical products continues. It is evident that the pharmaceutical industries have reached a sense of exhaustion in the development of synthetic drugs, and are now focusing their attention onto higher plants for potential cures. This, together with a fastest growing sector of health care, alternative medicine, is forcing pharmaceutical companies to re-focus their resources in medicine development. The country continues to lose important medicines to Western countries, notably Gundamiti, a Zimbabwean herb whose medicinal properties are said to reverse the symptoms of HIV and AIDS. Another example of a pirated plant is the ‘Devil’s Claw’ that occurs in the Kalahari desert and the Zambezi Valley. It has been used for a long time for the treatment of cancer of the skin and treating fevers of all kinds. The plant was also used in developed countries to treat several conditions such as gastro-intestinal problems, arthritis, diabetes and others. However, a patent has been taken by a German company for the commercialisation and marketing of the products at global scale without considering benefit-sharing mechanisms with the local communities and governments. The San people of southern Africa and the BaTonga of Zimbabwe and Zambia have for centuries used the Hoodia gordonii plant, a cactus-like plant. In addition to using it to treat eye infections and stomach pain, the tribes used Hoodia on long hunting expeditions to suppress hunger, thirst and to boost energy. Hoodia basically works by mimicking the effect that glucose has on nerve cells in the brain. This results in a feeling of fullness to the brain and diminishes the appetite. The court case between the San people of the Kalahari and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has been one of the more well-known cases of biopiracy. After many centuries of use by the San, the Hoodia plant eventually caught the eye of South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). In 1997, after a long period of development, the CSIR patented the use of the molecule that curbs the appetite. This was followed by an agreement between Phytopharm and Pfizer where the rights were sold to Pfizer to develop an anti-obesity drug. Until 2001, the San had no idea that their knowledge of Hoodia had led to research which yielded commercial interest, international patents and lucrative international deals. They were instead to discover that the CSIR had told Phytopharm that they, the San, no longer existed. It was only by the intervention of political and media institutions that the San were included in a ‘benefit-sharing agreement’ in 2003, for what is, essentially their intellectual property. Already, thousands of patents on African plants have been filed: brazzeine, a protein ‘500 times sweeter than sugar’ from a plant in Gabon has been used by locals for centuries; teff, the grain used in Ethiopia’s flat ‘injera’ bread has been used by the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea from as far back as 4000BCE; thaumatin, a natural sweet protein extracted from the katemfe plant in West Africa; the African soap berry and the Kunde Zulu cowpea; genetic material from the west African cocoa plant. One of the most widely used herbs in modern pharmaceuticals is Aloe Vera. This plant has been a favourite with the alternative and contemporary healing industries since time immemorial. The gel in the plant is commonly used for its soothing and healing qualities by the cosmetic industries for a number of conditions ranging from frostbite to multiple sclerosis. The history of the plant, however, goes back to Egypt. There are records of ancient Egyptians drawing pictures of Aloe Vera plants on the walls of the temples, as back as 6 000 years ago. They used the plants for its anti-fungal and anti-bacterial qualities. In South Africa, one of the country’s favourite caffeine-free hot beverages is rooibos tea, made from the leaves of the ‘redbush’ (calicotome villosa). Rooibos is now manufactured and packaged at a large scale as many people have come to be aware of its curative properties. History has it that the plant was often seen by European travellers and botanists visiting South Africa’s Cederberg region. They would see locals climbing mountains to harvest the needle-like leaves of the wild rooibos. Dutch settlers to the region began using this plant to brew a tea that would serve as an alternative to what was the then expensive black tea which they received from supply ships from Europe. Rooibos has now become a contemporary drink, served in numerous restaurants or enjoyed in homes. It has also made an appearance in a number of soaps for consumers with sensitive skins. Cola acuminata, also known as ‘kola nut’, is the origin of the term ‘cola’ used to indicate a particular flavour in popular soft drinks. The bitter fruit is commonly used in west Africa, in particular, Nigeria. It is known to contain levels of about two percent caffeine and is ceremonially used as presentation to guests or chewed individually or in group settings. It has also been used as a remedy to male potency issues. In the 19th century, John Pemberton took extracts of kola and coca, mixed them with sugar and carbonated water to invent Coca-Cola, even though kola nut is claimed to no longer be used in the beverage. These items are now in wide usage with many people not knowing where they originate from. In the absence of laws regulating the usage of Africa’s natural resources, the continent stands to lose out on indigenous knowledge of native flora. On the flip side, multinationals stand to gain billions of dollars from using this knowledge which may even affect the availability of these plants to those who discovered the plants’ properties in the first place. l To be continued