Traditional healers in the Southern Cape town of George have been awarded certificates of merit to run a newly established medicinal garden along acceptable business lines which will profit their healing business and help alleviate the strain on the ecological system in the area.

Local authorities donated the Witfontein Medicinal Plant Nursery on the slopes of Outeniqua Mountain Pass to  more than 40 traditional healers in the area, who have been empowered with business skills over a period of three months to run the garden profitably.

Conservation body, Cape Nature initiated the project three years ago after it noticed a general disturbance of indigenous vegetation and the ecological system as traditional healers roamed the area in search of medicinal herbs.

Cape Nature’s Allisdair McDonald says: “We had an ongoing problem since 2005 of bark stripping in the Montague Pass which forms part of the Outeniqua Nature Reserve outside George. The project is designed to provide opportunities for the traditional healers to gain access to the plants that are propagated in this garden without having to go to the natural environment and plunder it further.”

Cape Nature says the initiative will enable traditional healers to harvest indigenous plants at the garden without negatively affecting the fynbos in the area. Traditional healer Cingiswa Mtabati adds: “This means this is the beginning of the unveiling of our lost culture as African People  -- the youth is lost as they don't know their background ,where their forefathers are coming from, or how they were living.”

The Eden District Municipality will now oversee the project and inject funding where necessary. An initial R60 000 has been pumped into the project to get the ball rolling.

Eden district municipality’s Vernon Gibbs-Halls says: “Well it's been a very great honour to be involved in it, we have come in as partners now... Cape Nature are going to be involved in an advisory capacity after initiating the project,. We are lucky we are coming on board because we have got funding for such very important projects, we centre around looking after  environmental interests first, because without the integrity of the environment our socio-economic issues suffer very greatly.”