African traditional medicine contributes to greater healthcare coverage by providing primary healthcare to rural dwellers, who often have limited access to modern medical services. However, the prevalence of traditional medicine use has been reported to put pressure on biological resources upon which it relies. Indigenous people have identified many wild animals as possessing curative properties. The use of animals and their body parts as ingredients in traditional medicine is often poorly regulated and therefore represents a major challenge for biodiversity conservation. We investigated traditional health practitioners’ ethnomedicinal use of vultures in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. In-depth interviews were conducted with 26 traditional health practitioners from two district municipalities. Data collected were analysed through qualitative and quantitative methodologies. We documented seven parts of the vulture that traditional health practitioners used in KwaZulu-Natal. When the Use Value (UV) index was calculated for each part, the head obtained the highest (0.92). Consensus on parts and their uses was generally low across the study group. Of the 21 uses reported for vulture parts, 71% were spiritual-based. The participants were aware of the hunting of vultures through the use of poison but demonstrated different views about the risks associated with using such material. Overall, our findings confirm the increasing use of African vultures in traditional medicine. Raising awareness and upscaling the active involvement of traditional health practitioners in natural resource management may benefit vulture conservation and that of other species commonly used in belief-based practices.
Vultures are presently the most threatened raptor guild in the world. Threats to vultures are numerous and mainly anthropogenic. Understanding human communities' relationship with threatened species can guide and strengthen conservation initiatives. We assessed the awareness, benefits, beliefs, threats, and conservation perspectives of people surrounding protected areas accommodating the few remaining vulture strongholds in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. We conducted a total of 450 semi-structured interviews and seven focus group discussions. Respondents demonstrated a strong awareness of vultures and reportedly derived benefits from having these avian scavengers in their localities. The most cited benefit (65%) was carrion removal. A predominant belief amongst local people was that vultures are potent in traditional medicine (66%); this was regarded by the majority of respondents (79%) as the main driver for the illegal killing of vultures. Most participants (84%) viewed vulture populations to have declined. Overall, local people demonstrated complex but predominantly positive perceptions towards vultures. Mounting evidence of the use of vultures in traditional medicine compels urgent action. We recommend co-learning-based engagements between resource users and conservation scientists.
Conservationists speculated on potential benefits to wildlife of lockdown restrictions because of the COVID-19 pandemic but voiced concern that restrictions impeded nature conservation. We assessed the effects of lockdown restrictions on biodiversity conservation in South Africa, a biodiverse country with economic inequality and reliance on wildlife resources. We solicited expert opinion using the IUCN’s Threats Classification Scheme to structure a questionnaire and illustrated responses with individual case studies from government parastatal and non-governmental conservation organisations. The most highly reported threats were biological resource use, residential/commercial developments, invasive species, and human intrusions. The trends reported by 90 survey respondents were supported by case studies using environmental compliance data from parastatal conservation organisations. Lack of tourism revenue and funding were cited as hindrances to conservation. Mechanisms to prevent environmental degradation in the face of global emergencies must be implemented and ‘ring-fenced’ to ensure conservation is not a casualty during future global crises.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.