Concerns are rife in the hoodia industry that illegal harvesting of the plant's wild populations are depriving Namibia's poor of the opportunity to share in the benefits of the trade.
Due to smuggling, many hoodia plants that once occurred naturally are said to have disappeared. Namibia, which has 10 species of hoodia, is one of five African countries where the plant is endemic. The others are Angola, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Due to its high economic value, as well as the active ingredient for making dietary and hunger suppressing pills, stakeholders in the industry say a lot of illegal harvesting is going on, especially in rural areas.
These concerns were raised at a Hoodia Information Day attended by hundreds of people on March 28. One participant accused the authorities of not doing enough to stop the illegal activities especially in the Hardap and Karas regions, where commercial and small-scale operations on communal area conservancies have already started.
Environment minister Willem Konjore concurred with the concerns, saying that the problem was rife in rural areas where the plant is exposed and unprotected. He said reports he has received indicate there are some unscrupulous business people from neighbouring countries that are offering local people money to harvest the resource for them. Indications from authorities charged with protecting hoodia are that smugglers buy the plant from locals, who earn as little as N$10 (US$1.40) per bag. In some instances communal area dwellers harvest and sell the plant to commercial farmers. Of the cases that the ministry has dealt with, the majority of the culprits are commercial farmers, according to a government official.
The chairperson of the Hoodia Working Group, Louisa Mupetami, said it was important to protect Hoodia gordonii to avoid its extinction. Hoodia is a protected species under the 1975 Nature Conservation Ordinance, which means that the collection of seeds, cultivation, movement and sale of plants are subject to permit control. Hoodia is also listed on the Convention of International Trade on Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES), after Namibia and its regional partners lobbied for the plant to receive a listing as a further safeguard.
Konjore stressed at the meeting that Hoodia presented an opportunity to contribute to economic growth, national development objectives and poverty reduction.
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