Bio-diversity

The project aims at conducting a national survey and inventory/stock taking of the distribution and prevalence of hoodia in the wild in Kgalagadi, Bobirwa, Boteti and Ghanzi districts. There is an ever growing demand for hoodia and hoodia products in the world particularly in southern Africa, its natural rangeland. There is also a growing local interest in the cultivation of Hoodia to supply the existing lucrative market. This emerging commercial interst in hoodia relies and will always depend on the conservation of wild hoodia populations for the supply of seeds. There is also a strong evidence that here is an ongoing illegal trade in wild hoodia in the three range states of Botswana, Namibia and RSA. However, in Botswana where most of the land is either national parks or communal areas it is difficult to know how much hoodia exists in the wild except for the fact that it has been sighted at the areas already mentioned. However, hoodia is a CITES II category plant. Therefore, hoodia is an endangered yet highly valuable natural product that needs urgent collective interventions to conserve and sustainably utilize.

Botswana