Abstract
In Limpopo Province, harvesting plants for herbal use by traditional health practitioners and ordinary people is an everyday practice. The study investigated the utilization of the following Threatened or Protected Plant-listed species (TOPS): Alepidea amatymbica Eckl. & Zeyh., Brackenridgea zanguebarica Oliv., Dioscorea sylvatica Eckl., Drimia sanguinea (Schinz) Jessop, Siphonochilus aethiopicus (Schweinf.) B.L.Burtt and Warburgia salutaris (G.Bertol.) Chiov. in Limpopo Province, South Africa. A total of 333 participants were interviewed in this study, across the five districts of the Limpopo Province. Results indicate that traditional health practitioners (THPs) and community members (CMs) use these species exclusively for medicinal purposes. Remedies were often prepared using the underground parts of the plants, which were purchased chiefly from muthi shops–shops trading in both indigenous and exotic plant and animal material used for witchcraft and/or healing. Just over 58.4% of respondents indicated that they purchase material from muthi shops due to their scarcity in local communal lands. In contrast, nearly 40% of participants disclosed that they harvest material from open access land. Only 1.6% of participants sourced these plants from their home gardens. The preference for underground parts and species rarely cultivated in home gardens will lead to extinction of wild populations unless users switch to alternative parts for sustainability.
Highlights
Ronald CarrollThe use of traditional medicine to treat various diseases has been part of human culture since ancient times [1]
This study noted that most community members (CMs) were not interested in using medicinal plants, they could not remember the medicinal application of a single plant
It was found that the species most commonly used by traditional health practitioners (THPs) and CMs were; S. aethiopicus, W. salutaris and D. sanguinea (Table 2)
Summary
Ronald CarrollThe use of traditional medicine to treat various diseases has been part of human culture since ancient times [1]. As is common in other provinces of South Africa, in the Limpopo Province, harvesting of plants for herbal use by both traditional health practitioners (THPs) and ordinary people is an everyday practice [9]. Harvesting of these species in the Limpopo Province, especially by THPs, is usually triggered by the high demand for Received: 4 July 2021
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