A Review Study on Alternative Conservation and Management Methods to Sustain Medicinal Plants in South Africa

The use of indigenous medicinal plants is still prevalent as the most trusted form of health care, predominantly in developing countries. Overuse of medicinal plant resources, coupled with the negative impacts of unpredictable rainfall and rising temperatures, necessitated the development of local methods to conserve medicinal plants. These indigenous conservation methods have proved to be failing and aggravating threats to medicinal plants. This study aimed to review the alternative conservation and management methods to protect medicinal plants in South Africa. A review of the literature presents in situ, ex situ, natural reserves, wild nurseries, botanical gardens, and seed banks as alternative conservation methods proposed and used by scientists to conserve and manage medicinal plant species. These methods are Western practices introduced to the local communities in an effort to conserve and protect the indigenous medicinal plant species for future use and as a cultural heritage. From a qualitative standpoint, this study adopted the interpretivist research design to offer support to employ the systematic review method. Seminal studies on this subject were purposively collected using keywords extracted from the research topic. The collected data was analysed using the inductive Textual Content Analysis (TCA) method. The results of this study reveal that there are various conservation methods that are implemented as strategies to safeguard the existing medicinal plants, and this proves if these methods are implemented correctly these plants will still be available for future use. It is concluded and recommended that the demand for medicinal plants imposes huge threats to their anticipated availabilities, therefore, the relevant stakeholders need to take urgent corrective measures ­concerned parties should be consistently exposed to improved resources, advanced training and better education about the benefits and importance of these plants. Keywords: Medicinal plants, conservation method, In situ, natural resource