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Some Bokspits residents call the plant seboka while others know it as tlhokabotshwaro.
Outsiders have named it Bushmans Hat, Queen of the Namib, and many other names. Scientifically, however, the wild plant is known as Hoodia Gordonii, and is reputed to have medicinal properties.
Found in the Bokspits region, the plant is now being grown commercially to benefit the communities of southern Kgalagadi where it grows wild.
Local Khoi San communities, however, have long known about the special medicinal value of the plant and have chewed the succulent stems of the plant to suppress hunger.
Mr Duncan Basima, a senior technical conservation officer in the Department of Forestry and Range Resources, said the plant was in high demand internationally and that they decided to cultivate it domestically to benefit communities where it grew wild.
Mr Basima said the plant species they have cultivated contains the active ingredient P.57 which is reputed to surpress hunger.
He said his department started a communal cultivation project in Bokspits to generate income for residents and create national capacity in Hoodia cultivation.
Four communities in the Bokspits area have been mobilised and trained to cultivate the plant.The project was funded by the African Development Fund for two years in cooperation with Veld Product Research and Development.
The project would help reduce poverty in the arid Bokspits area and communities would be able to earn a living out of the plants, he said Kgosi Fredrick Titus of Struizedam also agreed that if the community could start to produce Hoodia Gordonii on a commercial scale, they would be empowered.
He said authorties have agreed that each family should be given a plot to cultivate the plant if the project is succesful.
However, Bokspits residents would have to wait until 2009 to harvest their first crop of medicinal plants as they only started the project in October last year.
Ms Hendrica Vanniekerk of Bokspits is one of the community workers who has been trained to take care of the Hoodia Gordonii seedlings. I have to water them after two or three days depending on whether there is moisture because the plant is naturally not susceptible to dryness, she said Another community worker, Mr Kleinjan Matthys of Struizedam, has not had the same success as his counterpart from Bokspits.
He said he encountered no problems with his seedlings when he started, but now seedlings have started to die.
He said he was was waiting for help from the veld product organisation. Mr Matthys also complained about the support that he and his colleagues get from the community of Struizedam.
He said he wondered whether they would use the project after its hand over to the community.
People here are not keen to assist us in taking care of the seedlings after germination and I dont know if they would be keen to take over this important project in future, he said.
The General Manager of Veld Products Research and Development, Mr Douglas Thamage, said multinational phamaceutical companies were interested in the plant that grows wildly in Namibia, South Africa and Botswana Mr Thamage said the Hoodia Gordonii project was still at cultivation stage and that his organisation was trying to train communities on how to conserve and harvest the plant for commercial use.
At the moment we are trying to encourage people to plant Hoodia Gordonii in their own plots since there isnt much in the bush which could be used for commercial purposes, he said.
It takes three to four years for the plant to be ready for harvest. South African scientists have been testing Hoodia Gordonii and they discovered that the plant contained a previously unknown molecule that replicates the effect glucose has on nerve cells in the brain fooling the body into thinking it is full.
The appetite suppressant properties of Hoodia Gordonii have now been developed and Hoodia derivative products are marketed in many western countries where obesity is a problem.
The latest Hoodia Gordonii health product is the HOODOBA diet pills that are said to kill appetite.
Source: gov.bw |
