2. Eco Overload, by Aukram Burton
 
According to a recent news article entitled, “Eco Overload” in the Mail & Guardian (July 6 to 12, 2007), Yolandi Groenewald discusses the second Environment Outlook report authored by leading environmental scientists who are studying the environmental health of South Africa. The report focused on key areas such as land, inland water resources, marine areas, atmosphere, human settlement and biodiversity. Groenewald noted that the second Environment Outlook report emphasizes that the greatest threat to biodiversity might be climate change. Groenewald continued by saying that:
 
  1. South Africa’s biodiversity is under threat, with species
  2. destruction on the increase. Almost 10% of South Africa’s birds and frogs and 20% of its mammals are threatened.
  3.  
  4. Natural resources that support livelihoods are “rapidly declining” because of over-exploitation, particularly in forests, grasslands, the KwaZulu-Natal. The report warns that over-harvesting of indigenous plants for subsistence and commercial use is driving species … to  extinction. Slow growing plants used for medicines have to be better protected.
 
Silverglen was established in 1980, by Geoff Nichols, the then Conservation Officer of the eThekwini Parks Department, and Protus Cele, an Inyanga (herbalist) who owns a successful muthi business in Umlazi Township.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Scenic view of the 250 hector Silverglen Nature Reserve with Umlazi Township in the background. Silverglen has successfully propagated many of the endangered medicinal plant species identified on the reserve and in the region. (Photo by Aukram Burton)
 
 
Nichols and Cele joined forces to address a vital need to start to propagate rare and threatened indigenous plants that were used for healing. In 1986, they started a project called “The Silverglen Medicinal Plant Project.” The primary aim was to encourage herbalists and herb gatherers to conserve the natural plant population by collecting and planting seeds in their own gardens.
 
During an interview with Brian Abraham, Silverglen’s Horticulturalist, he said:
 
  1. There are many rare and threatened plants used for medicinal purposes that were once abundant in KwaZulu-Natal, but because of high levels of harvesting, the more popular ones such as Wild Ginger (Siphonochilus aethiopicus) have become scarce. Once thought extinct, this highly sought after bulb is now growing in abundance at Silverglen.
 
The nursery’s primary focus is to share knowledge with medicinal plant harvesters, traders, Sangomas and Inyangas and help them produce stocks of medicinal plants through growing their own seedlings and farming.
 
Silverglen’s posted objectives read as follows:
 
  1. • Create conservation awareness through education;
  2. • Promote cultivation of medicinal plants;
  3. • Teach herbalists/herb gathers how to propagate their         own medicinal plants;
  4. • Reduce pressure of over exploitation of natural resources particularly in Durban, South Africa.
 
 
Scenic view of the Valley of a Thousand Hills where the Silverglen Reserve lies scattered among other reserves and conservancies in the area. (Photo by Aukram Burton)