AFRICAN MEDICINAL TREE THREATENED WITH EXTINCTION >

• AFRICAN MEDICINAL TREE THREATENED WITH EXTINCTION
  >
  > One of Africa's unique trees, Prunus africana, is threatened with extinction
  > due to demand in Europe and America for a medicinal extract produced from its
  > bark.
  >
  > By Judith Achieng
  >
  > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  > --
  >
  > May 1999
  >
  > The tree popularly known as Pygeum or Prunus africana is the only African
  > variety of more than 200 species of Prunus scattered around the world and the
  > only one used by pharmaceutical companies to manufacture a drug used in
  > treating prostrate problems among elderly men.
  >
  > 'Prunus africana was once well distributed throughout Africa, from Ethiopia
  > to South Africa and from the west coast to the island of Madagascar. Since
  > its medicinal properties became widely known, it has been ruthlessly
  > harvested,' said Tony Simmons, a researcher at the Nairobi-based
  > International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF).
  >
  > Simmons said nearly 60% of men over 50 in Europe and America suffer from
  > prostrate-related diseases, putting a demand on the production of drugs
  > obtained only from the dark trunk of the evergreen tree found only in
  > Africa's scattered mountainous regions.
  >
  > The bark is currently priced at $220 million in the pharmaceutical industry,
  > from an annual average harvest of 3,500 tonnes, fetching up to $60 per
  > kilogramme.
  >
  > 'With rising incidences of prostrate problems, an aging population, and a
  > growing confidence in natural medicines, some companies believe the market
  > for prunus remedies could double or triple in the coming decade,' he told a
  > conference on the plant which brought together international forestry experts
  > and commercial interests in the capital Nairobi in late September 1998.
  >
  > All that is left of the tree, which usually grows over a period of 30 years
  > to stand up to 40 metres tall, is a limited number of wild populations mainly
  > in Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where moderately
  > sized natural stands of the tree still exist.
  >
  > The conference heard that in the north-western province of Cameroon and also
  > the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar, the tree is now faced with extinction.
  >
  > 'Prunus was a common tree in Cameroon, but now it is scarce, due to
  > unsustainable harvesting,' said Christian Asanga, who works for the
  > Cameroonian government's department of forestry.
  >
  > Scientists say the tree, which has been used for centuries by African
  > traditional healers to treat similar problems, in addition to a range of
  > diseases, was harvested in a sensible manner until commercial interest came
  > in. 'You will hardly find any concoction from a traditional healer which does
  > not have Prunus africana,' Asanga explained.
  >
  > 'But they only removed small panels of the bark from standing trees, leaving
  > others to nourish the tree while the removed portion heals,' he said.
  >
  > As demand grew, however, larger quantities of the bark were stripped from
  > standing or felled trees. Generally, trees were stripped 'naked' as with the
  > case of Mount Cameroon, where up to 8,000 trees were left dead but standing.
  > In the Mount Kilimindie region (also in Cameroon), 80% of mature trees died
  > as a result of poor harvesting techniques, Asanga said.
  >
  > A few years ago, Prunus africana was appended to the Appendix II list of the
  > Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which only
  > allows licensed trade of products from the tree.
  >
  > But even this has done little to stop illegal exporters in Cameroon from
  > overexploiting the tree. They come to villages at night and bribe the people
  > into giving them permission to harvest the bark, says Asanga. In Kenya,
  > unlike in Cameroon, the tree, which also has a good market for timber and
  > fuel, is threatened by renewed demand for human settlements, while large
  > chunks of forests continue to be cleared.
  >
  > Stella Simiya of the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) told the conference that
  > although most Kenyans are aware of its medicinal values, the tree is fast
  > disappearing, to make way for settlements. At most, Simiya said, Prunus
  > africana will last 10 years in Kenya.
  >
  > In Uganda, there are few traces of the tree left in the southern Kabale
  > hills, where it was until recently in abundance, mainly due to
  > over-cultivation, according to Wilson Bamwerinde of Uganda's forestry
  > department.
  >
  > Jonathan Leakey, Kenya's only harvester who exports his bark to a
  > pharmaceutical company in France, is also concerned. 'My interest is to be
  > able to see continuing harvesting of the bark for commercial purposes, but
  > there is a limited amount of forest in this country and the cutting of trees
  > cannot go on forever,' says Leakey, who earns $2 per kilogramme of bark. His
  > average annual harvest and export is 400 tonnes of bark.
  >
  > Kate Schreckenberg, a senior fellow at the London-based Overseas Development
  > Institute (ODI), urged farmers to replant the trees.
  >
  > 'We are asking ourselves what kind of money farmers can earn from growing the
  > tree and whether there are markets out there to sustain them,' she said.
  > Currently, the whole bark of a 40-metre-tall tree can earn as much as $500, a
  > sum which Schreckenberg says is too little considering the tree takes up to
  > 20 years to start producing decent bark and up to five years for the bark to
  > heal after removal. 'Benefits from the tree must be shared equitably,
  > trickling down to the farmers,' she said.
  >
  > Prunus is cultivated in mountainous areas where most farmers usually prefer
  > to grow cash crops such as coffee, tea and pyrethrum. - Third World Network
  > Features/IPS
  >
  > About the writer: Judith Achieng is a correspondent for Inter Press Service,
  > with whose permission the above article is reprinted.
  >
  > ~~~~
  > "I've talked about the wrong side of the color bar, but the truth is that
  > both are the wrong sides. Do not think that we, on the white side of
  > privilege, are the people we might be in a society that had no sides at all.
  > We do not suffer, but we are coarsened. Even to continue to live here is to
  > acquiesce in some measure to apartheid - to a sealing off of responses, the
  > cauterization of the human heart, as well as to withholding the vote from
  > those who outnumber us, eight to one. Our children grow up accepting as part
  > of a natural phenomena the fact that they are well-clothed and well-fed,
  > while black children are ragged and skinny. It cannot occur to the white
  > child that the black one has any rights outside of charity; you must explain
  > to your child, if you have the mind to, that men have decided this, that the
  > white shall have, and the black shall have not, and it is not an immutable
  > law, like the rising of the sun in the morning. Even then it is not possible
  > entirely to counter with facts an emotional climate of privilege. We have
  > the better part of everything; how difficult is it for us to not feel,
  > somewhere secretly, that we are better. - Nadine Gordimer
  > ~~~
  

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