Policies for Sharing Benefits from Hoodia

Abstract

This chapter provides an analysis of the policies and laws that have emerged in southern Africa to regulate the harvesting, trade, and commercial development of Hoodia. Many of these policies have evolved rapidly, alongside the commercialisation of Hoodia and the increasing prominence of access and benefit sharing as a policy issue. However, policy implementation has been challenging, complicated by the fact that both the traditional knowledge that was used to develop Hoodia and the species involved cross national borders and involve a number of distinct indigenous communities. Each of the three countries with which Hoodia and its knowledge are associated has evolved a distinct regulatory approach towards the plant's conservation and use, and to the way in which ABS issues are framed. Moreover, southern African countries are at very different points of legislating for ABS, hold inconsistent understandings of the role of traditional knowledge holders, and also have varied approaches and capacities for bioprospecting and natural product development. While these more slippery political issues of benefit sharing and indigenous peoples remain disconnected and incoherent between southern African countries, those countries have increasingly collaborated to design joint policies for Hoodia management, with steps put in place to collaborate more strongly on poaching, trade and the transport of illegally harvested material. This bodes well for future cooperation and suggests a positive environment within which policy resolutions can be found.