Soul Shava

Medicinal utilization of exotic plants by Bapedi traditional healers to treat human ailments in Limpopo Province, South Africa.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE Most exotic plants are usually labelled as alien invasives and targeted for eradication. However, some of these exotic plants play an important role in the traditional primary healthcare sector of the Bapedi culture in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. The medicinal uses of most of these species have neither been documented nor their biological activity evaluated. AIM OF THE STUDY To make an inventory of exotic species employed by Bapedi traditional healers to treat different human ailments in the Limpopo Province, South Africa. MATERIALS AND METHODS Semi-structured interviews, observation and guided field walks with 52 traditional healers were employed to obtain ethnobotanical data during first half of 2011 on the use of exotic plant species by Bapedi healers to treat human ailments. Based on ethnobotanical information provided by these healers, specimens were collected, numbered, pressed, and dried for identification. RESULTS A total of 35 exotics species belonging to 21 families and 34 genera, mostly from the Fabaceae and Solanaceae (11.4% for each), Apocynaceae and Asteraceae (8.5% for each) were used by Bapedi healers to treat 20 human ailments. Trees (45.7%) and herbs (37.1%) are the primary source of medicinal plants. Species most frequently reported were used for the treatment of hypertension (35%), diabetes mellitus, erectile dysfunction and gonorrhoea (25% for each). The highest consensus from individual accounts of the traditional healers on the use of exotic plant remedies in this study was noted for the three ailments. These were for Catharanthus roseus (gonorrhoea, 60%), Punica granatum (diarrhoea, 38.4%) and Ricinus communis (sores, 21.5%). Of the 35 exotic plant species recorded, 34.2% are regulated by the Conservation of Agricultural Resources Act (1983) (CARA) No. 43 of 1983 either as worst weeds or invaders. CONCLUSION The present study demonstrated that exotic plant species play an important part as medicinal remedies employed by Bapedi healers to treat different human diseases in the Limpopo Province. The use of these species as alternative sources of medicinal remedies could alleviate harvesting pressure of wild indigenous plants, thereby enhance biodiversitys region. However, there is a need to formulate an appropriate policy to retain some of the useful medicinal exotics (listed under CARA No. 43 of 1983) within the environment before their medicinal value vanishes as they are eradicated through management strategies adopted by the South African government.

Traditional food crops as a source of community resilience in Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT This article draws on local narratives and observations of food sustenance practices in relocated farming communities in Sebakwe, Zimbabwe. Local knowledge on traditional food crops and related agricultural practices was proven to be a source of local community resilience, enabling residents to sustain their livelihoods. Local community agency in maintaining, cultivating and processing traditional food crops was found to sustain their culture and livelihoods, thereby providing community resilience in a changing environment.

Urban Landscapes as Learning Arenas for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Management

Using examples from Asia, Africa, and North America, we demonstrate how restoration and stewardship projects, including those with significant community engagement, provide opportunities for environmental and biodiversity learning in cities. Although research on such programs is in its initial stages, several studies show positive impacts of urban environmental education and related field science inquiry experiences on participant environmental attitudes, awareness of urban nature, science understanding, and self-efficacy, with greater effects correlated with degree of involvement in hands-on, field-based experiences. In addition, programs that actively engage participants in restoration and inquiry reflect social equity, participatory, and environmental principles central to global initiatives in environmental education and sustainability. Such projects also reflect current theories of learning including those focusing on the ways children construct understanding of phenomena they encounter in everyday life (constructivism) and those that describe learning as an outcome of interaction with the socio-cultural and bio-physical environment (social learning). While recognizing the importance of school-based learning, our case examples illustrate the myriad of out-of-school learning arenas connected to projects in which civil society groups, government, and volunteers collaboratively engage in environmental stewardship, such as pond restoration to create dragonfly habitat in Japanese cities, indigenous species restoration at the Edith Stephens Wetland Park in Cape Flats, South Africa, and urban community gardening in vacant lots and other degraded spaces in the USA. More formal restoration projects, such as the daylighting of the Cheonggye-cheon River in Seoul, South Korea, as well as botanic gardens that feature biological and cultural diversity, also integrate nature-based, cultural, historical, and science inquiry learning opportunities. Given that many urban environmental education projects are local in scope, partnerships with global initiatives such as the UN Education for Sustainable Development and the Convention for Biological Diversity Communication, Education and Public Awareness, and with NGOs, governments, and business, are needed to leverage these learning arenas to effect broader regional, national, and even global systemic change.

Turning Degraded Open Space into a Community Asset – The Soweto Mountain of Hope Greening Case

Environmental and community educator Soul Shava and community greening activist Mandla Mentoor recount the story of South Africa’s Soweto Mountain of Hope—a community garden that arose from the ashes of apartheid violence in Johannesburg’s largest township.

Strengthening Teachers’ Knowledge and Practices Through a Biodiversity Education Professional Development Programme

What constitutes adequate teacher professional development support that enables teachers to engage meaningfully with ESD learning processes? In an attempt to answer this question, this chapter focuses on how continuing teacher professional development programmes can support teachers of Life Sciences to teach biodiversity as a grounding concept to strengthen educational quality and relevance of Life Sciences education. It reflects on how continuing teacher professional development programmes may be designed and implemented to support South African teachers to work creatively with a content and assessment-referenced national school curriculum. The chapter focuses on what content knowledge, teaching and assessment approaches to include as well as teachers’ reflections on the impacts of such a programme.

The Application of Ecological Footprint Analysis to Distance Learning University Contexts: A Case Study of the College of Education, University of South Africa

The Ecological Footprint (EF) analysis can be considered as an indicator for assessing the environmental impact of universities, since it indicates flow of natural resources consumption and waste generation caused by university activities. This paper presents the estimation of the EF at the College of Education (CEDU) of the University of South Africa (UNISA), a distance learning university. The environmental aspects considered for the EF calculations were electricity, water and paper consumption, transportation and built-up area. The results revealed that electricity consumption itself is the major component of CEDU´s EF. This study contributes to the field of environmental assessment based on footprint, providing methodological procedures that encourage future research to the almost unexplored field of EF studies applied to distance education universities.