Allachy project: Building capacity for community-based conservation of medicinal plants in Kenya

Grantee:

National Museums of Kenya (section: Kenya Resource Centre for Indigenous Knowledge)

Project period: February 2006 to January 2007

Highlights

• The project is co-ordinated by an advisory group drawn from different sectors interested in medicinal plants in Kenya.
  
• The project has provided three small grants for community-based conservation of medicinal plants. The communities selected are in Nyeri, near Mbeere Hill and at Bondo.
  
• The project will develop a strategy for collaboration on medicinal plant conservation between Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. As part of this exercise, national reports on priorities in medicinal plant conservation will be produced for each country.

See also: Technical report for period February 2006 to July 2006

See also: Final technical report of the project, July 2007

Project account by Peris Kariuki of the National Museums of Kenya, 30 March 2000

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Project description

“Plantlife comes to Kenya’s help in her efforts to conserve Medicinal Plants”

In Kenya, medicinal plants are becoming harder to find in their natural habitats. Herbal practitioners increasingly have to go further – on journeys lasting several days – sometimes to find only a handful of their favourite herbs. Kenya’s rapid decline in its medicinal plant resources is not only affecting the health of millions of people, it is also reducing incomes and diminishing age-old customs.

“It is pathetic”, says Dr Kiragu, a herbal practitioner at Rongai, a suburb area of Nairobi City, “I would never have imagined having to travel for several days and to another country to get just two of the key ingredients in the herbal mixtures I give to my patients.”

In recent years there has been unprecedented pressure on naturally growing medicinal plants, a situation occasioned mainly by the higher costs of conventional treatments, an ever-growing population and an increased demand as a result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The pressure has been particularly high on species that are well known as medicinal plants. The advent of HIV/AIDS has seen more people turning to plants not only for their curative properties, but also for nutrition, since some of them are rich in micronutrients.

Dr Kiragu is not alone in such frustration. 400 kilometres away, not far from Lake Victoria, lives another practitioner, Dr Ezekiel Ogine who works for Miguye Herbal Clinic. “I used to get most of my herbal medicine from the wildlands around my house”, says Ezekiel. “ My main medicinal plants have been depleted and now I have to get the plants from other forests further away. But, the plants are now becoming finished there too and I will have to travel to distant lands to find them, just as others do.”

Protected lands such as national forest reserves, national parks and game reserves are the last remaining sources of medicinal plants. Game parks are under strict management and therefore collectors avoid them. Forest reserves and game reserves have lately come under extreme pressure from harvesters in spite of the risks of being arrested.

68 year old Lita Nziva of Mwala Division in Machakos District brought up her 12 children mainly using herbal medicine. “Since land tenure changed from communal to individual ownership, things have never been the same”, laments Nziva. “A few populations of mukenea and mukawa (types of medicinal plants) fell in my piece of land during the subdivisions but other people did not have these plants in their plots. They resorted to stealing the plants from my plot at night. They uprooted all the mukawa and debarked all the mukenea. Now I have nothing for my grandchildren when they get fever, coughs and stomach ailments”.

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The situation is similar in the rest of the country but worst among the agricultural communities where pressure to open more land for cultivation is highest. About 90 species of medicinal plants are now under serious threat primarily due to over-harvesting.

“The problems of medicinal plant conservation are not only due to over-harvesting, but also due to habitat destruction and the use of species for other purposes. These pressures are likely to increase due to increasing poverty, population increase and increasing demand for cropland”, says Peris Kariuki of the Kenya Resource Centre for Indigenous Knowledge (KENRIK). “We have to reverse the trend and adopt sustainable approaches including proper harvesting methods and cultivation.”

In October 2005, Plantlife International signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the National Museums of Kenya to collaborate in biodiversity conservation with an emphasis on its sustainable use.

In January 2006, Plantlife signed another agreement with the National Museums of Kenya to build capacity for community-based conservation of medicinal plants in Kenya in a project that aims to conserve medicinal plants not only for the sake of the plants themselves, but also for cultural promotion, healthcare and economic development. An initial grant of £10,000 has been given to the project from the Allachy Fund for Livelihoods from Wild Plants, which is administered by Plantlife.

The project will:

• Build capacity for community-based conservation of medicinal plants in Kenya through support for practical initiatives;
• Develop a strategy for collaboration with other countries in east Africa to exchange case studies and best practices in community-based conservation of medicinal plants in a larger regional programme
• Develop and disseminate tool kits for community-based conservation of medicinal plants.

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Initially, the project will work with three communities – diverse culturally, socio-economically and ecologically.

Locally the project will contribute to the ongoing development of conservation and development related to medicinal plants. Regionally, the project will help strengthen the East African Network on Medicinal Plants and Traditional Medicine. At the international arena, the project will contribute to the objectives of the African Decade of Traditional Medicine and the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (especially Target 13: sustainable use of plant resources for livelihoods).

The National Museums of Kenya is collaborating in this project with the Kenya Forestry Research Institute, Maseno University and Department of Culture.

For more information about this project please contact:

Peris M. Kariuki
Kenya Resource Centre for Indigenous Knowledge
National Museums of Kenya (NMK)
P.O. Box 40658, GPO 00100 Nairobi, Kenya
Email: pmweru@yahoo.com or pkariuki@kenrik.org
Telephone: +254 (0)20 3741673, 3742131-4/61-4
Fax: +254 (0)20 3741424
National Museums of Kenya website

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