How Access and Benefit Sharing Entrenches Inequity: The Case of Rooibos

Abstract

Benefit-sharing agreements are a new, prescriptive way of treating trade, biodiversity and the commercial use of traditional knowledge. However, these agreements have met with surprisingly little critique as a development paradigm. Through the lens of the industry around rooibos, a plant native to South Africa, we offer new, critical perspectives on the potential pitfalls of so-called access and benefit sharing (ABS) agreements. Rooibos underpins a well-established tea industry and was central to a much-lauded benefit-sharing agreement with Indigenous San and Khoi communities. We argue, however, that ABS as a model not only fails to challenge the engrained powers of state, capital, race and patriarchy, but even appears to legitimise (falsely) these powers because of its inability to grapple with local contexts and struggles over identity, representation and land. Despite its guise as an apolitical regulatory instrument, ABS entrenches existing marginalities, exclusions and structural inequities. Using a mixed methods approach that focuses on deep listening and draws from decades of research in the region, we demonstrate what happens when the depoliticising ABS framework collides with the complex and contentious politics of communities fractured by colonialism and apartheid. We conclude that ABS remains disconnected from, and structurally ignorant of, the wider political and economic struggles faced by marginalised communities. Aided by an intervening and complicit state, the agreements instead serve as legal compliance mechanisms that perpetuate epistemic injustices by maintaining a ‘business as usual’ approach without fundamentally shifting power relations or economic disparities.

Keywords:

• traditional knowledge
• access and benefit sharing
• Indigenous Khoi-San
• biopiracy
• governance
• power
• South Africa
• epistemic injustice

Notes

1 We use ‘traditional knowledge’ to reflect its adoption as a legal term in the Convention on Biological Diversity and other international agreements but recognise that the term is problematic; see C. Germond-Duret, ‘Tradition and Modernity: An Obsolete Dichotomy? Binary Thinking, Indigenous Peoples and Normalization’, Third World Quarterly, 37, 9 (2016), pp. 1537–58.

2 As of 30 November 2023, 141 countries have ratified the Convention’s Nagoya Protocol; see ‘The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing’, Convention on Biological Diversity, website, available at https://www.cbd.int/abs/nagoya-protocol/signatories, retrieved 8 December 2023.

3 Article 15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, available at https://www.cbd.int/doc/legal/cbd-en.pdf, retrieved 21 December, 2023.

4 Germond-Duret, ‘Tradition and Modernity’, pp. 1537–58; Forest Peoples Programme, Local Biodiversity Outlooks 2: The Contributions of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities to the Implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 and to Renewing Nature and Cultures. A complement to the fifth edition of Global Biodiversity Outlook (Forest Peoples Programme, Moreton-in-Marsh, 2020), available at https://localbiodiversityoutlooks.net/publications/, retrieved 21 December, 2023.

5 B. Berlin and E.A. Berlin, ‘Community Autonomy and the Maya ICBG Project in Chiapas, Mexico: How a Bioprospecting Project That Should Have Succeeded Failed’, Human Organisation, 63, 4 (2004), pp. 472–86; R. Wynberg and R. Chennells, ‘Green Diamonds of the South. A Review of the San–Hoodia Case’, in R. Wynberg, D. Schroeder and R. Chennells (eds), Indigenous Peoples, Consent and Benefit-Sharing: Learning from the San–Hoodia Case (Berlin, Springer, 2009), pp. 89–126; C. Morris, ‘Royal Pharmaceuticals. Bioprospecting, Rights and Traditional Authority in South Africa’, American Ethnologist, 43, 3 (2016), pp. 525–39; R. Wynberg, ‘Biopiracy: Crying Wolf or a Lever for Equity and Conservation?’, Research Policy, 52, 2 (2023), p. 104674, available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2022.104674, retrieved 21 December, 2023;World Inequality Lab, World Inequality Report (2022), available at https://wir2022.wid.world/, retrieved 21 December, 2023.

6 See J. Bam, Ausi Told Me: Why Cape Herstoriographies Matter (Johannesburg, Jacana Media, 2021). Bam notes the complexities and dynamism of the terminology used to describe Indigenous peoples of southern Africa, with ‘San’, ‘Khoi’, ‘Khoe’, ‘Khoisan’, ‘Khoi-San’, and ‘Khoikhoi’, among others, used variously for different political and tactical reasons and for different historical and socio-linguistic contexts. In this article, we use these names interchangeably, reflecting the integrated nature of peoples who identify as Khoi-San, as well as terms used in the primary sources associated with the rooibos case.

7 The gross production value of the industry is US$31 million (R500 million). The export value of rooibos tea in 2019 was R936 million, about US$58 million; see V. Barends-Jones, ‘Rooibos Tea – The Story of the Overberg’, report prepared for the Western Cape Department of Agriculture – Division for Macro and Resource Economics, December 2020.

8 Interview with Tim Hodges, online via Zoom, 27 October 2020, conducted by Rachel Wynberg and Sarah Laird.

9 The South African San Council is not the only body that claims to represent San communities, but is the largest and has been a central actor in negotiating benefit-sharing agreements based on traditional knowledge claims. The National Khoisan Council, established by former President Nelson Mandela in 1999 to accommodate Khoi-San historical leadership within South Africa’s Constitutional framework, has increasingly become a partner to various benefit-sharing agreements, in collaboration with the South African San Council. Within the Khoi-San movement this privilege is ascribed to its political alliance, and hence favoured position, with the ruling African National Congress (ANC). Many other organisations represent Khoi-San interests in addition to the National Khoisan Council.

10 See for example, ‘Speech by the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment, Ms Barbara Creecy, at the Signing Ceremony and Launch of the Rooibos Traditional Knowledge Industry-Wide Benefit Sharing Agreement’, (2019), available at https://www.gov.za/speeches/%C2%A0-rooibos-traditional-knowledge-industry-1-nov-2019-0000, retrieved 21 December 2023; L. Nordling, ‘Rooibos Tea Profits Will be Shared with Indigenous Communities in Landmark Agreement’, Nature, 575, 7781 (2019), pp. 19–21; D. Schroeder, R. Chennells, C. Louw, L. Snyders and T. Hodges, ‘The Rooibos Benefit Sharing Agreement – Breaking New Ground With Respect, Honesty, Fairness, and Care’, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 29, 2 (2020), pp. 285–301.

11 G. Dutfield, R. Wynberg, S. Laird and S. Ives, ‘Benefit Sharing and Traditional Knowledge: Unsolved Dilemmas for Implementation. The Challenge of Attribution and Origin: Traditional Knowledge and Access and Benefit Sharing’, Voices for BioJustice, Policy Brief, Cape Town, 2020, available at https://www.voices4biojustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Traditional-Knowledge-Policy-Brief-1.pdf, retrieved 21 December, 2023.

12 M. Fricker, ‘Epistemic Justice and a Role for Virtue in the Politics of Knowing’, Metaphilosophy, 34, 1–2 (2003), pp. 154–73; M. Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007).

13 Z. Pikoli, ‘Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act “brings back apartheid bantustans”, Say Activists’, Daily Maverick, Cape Town, 8 December 2019, available at https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-12-08-traditional-and-khoi-san-leadership-act-brings-back-apartheid-bantustans-say-activists/, retrieved 21 December, 2023; S. Greene, ‘Indigenous People Incorporated?: Culture as Politics, Culture as Property in Pharmaceutical Bioprospecting’, Current Anthropology, 45, 2 (2004), pp. 211–37.

14 C. Morris, ‘Royal Pharmaceuticals’, pp. 525–39; S.L. Robins, From Revolution to Rights in South Africa: Social Movements, NGOs and Popular Politics after Apartheid (Oxford, James Currey, 2008).

15 B.D. Neimark, ‘Industrializing Nature, Knowledge, and Labour: The Political Economy of Bioprospecting in Madagascar’, Geoforum, 43, 5 (2012), pp. 980–90; A.D. Osseo-Asare, Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2014); Morris, ‘Royal Pharmaceuticals’, pp. 525–39.

16 J. Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development”, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1994), p. xv.

17 A. Escobar, ‘Anthropology and Development’, International Social Science Journal, 49, 154 (1997), pp. 497–515, available at https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2451.1997.tb00040.x, retrieved 21 December, 2023; M.J. Watts, ‘Collective Wish Images: Geographical Imaginaries and the Crisis of Development’, in D. Massey, J. Allen and P. Sarre (eds), Human Geography Today (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1999), pp. 85–107.

18 T.M. Li, ‘Rendering Society Technical: Government Through Community and the Ethnographic Turn at the World Bank in Indonesia’, in D. Mosse (ed.), Adventures in Aidland: The Anthropology of Professionals in International Development (Oxford, Berghahn, 2011), pp. 57–80.

19 R. Wynberg, J. Hughes, A. Baas, S. Bell, J. Sharp, K. Hanks and M. Myanti, ‘Policy Options for Optimising the Use of Natural Resources in the Citrusdal Zone, Western Cape Province’, report prepared for the Land and Agriculture Policy Centre, Environmental Evaluation Unit (EEU) Report No. 15/94/126 (Cape Town, EEU University of Cape Town, 1994), D.R. Downes and S.A. Laird (with contributions by J. Casey, G. Dutfield, T.D. Mays and R. Wynberg), ‘Innovative Mechanisms for Sharing Benefits of Biodiversity and Related Knowledge. Case Studies on Geographical Indications, Trademarks and Databases’, UNCTAD Biotrade Initiative (Geneva, UNCTAD, 1999), available at https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/InnovativeMechanisms.pdf, retrieved 21 December, 2023; R. Wynberg, ‘Study on the Rooibos and Honeybush Industries in South Africa for the Identification of Target Groups Which Should Benefit from Fair Trade’, report prepared for Fair Trade Assistance, Project Number 02/062/FO (FTF-UK 2002) 22/5/2002, (Cape Town, EEU University of Cape Town, 2002); R. Wynberg, ‘Identifying Pro-Poor, Best Practice Models of Commercialisation of Southern African Non-timber Forest Products’ (PhD thesis, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 2006); R. Wynberg, ‘Product Rationale Paper for Fairly Traded Rooibos Tea’, report prepared for Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International (FLO) (Cape Town, EEU University of Cape Town, 2006); R. Wynberg and S. Custers, ‘Determining a Fair Price and Equitable Benefit for Small-Scale Rooibos Tea Producers. An Analysis of the Costing and Pricing of Small-Scale Production of Organic and Fair Trade Rooibos, and Benefit Flows Along the Rooibos Value Chain’, report prepared for Fair Trade Assistance Netherlands (Cape Town, EEU University of Cape Town, 2005); R. Wynberg, J. Silveston and C. Lombard, ‘Value Adding in the Southern African Natural Products Sector: How Much do Patents Matter?’, in The Economics of Intellectual Property in South Africa (Geneva, World Intellectual Property Organisation, 2009), pp. 18–55; S.F. Ives, Steeped in Heritage: The Racial Politics of South African Rooibos Tea (Durham, Duke University Press, 2017).

20 See Voices for BioJustice, website, available at https://www.voices4biojustice.org/, retrieved 21 December 2023.

21 The forum is a knowledge and research partnership established in 2018 between the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and San and Khoi community networks. It forms part of the South African National Research Foundation’s precolonial catalytic project. One of the co-authors, June Bam, is a co-founding member of this forum, the founding director of UCT’s San and Khoi Centre, and a co-participant in these dialogues. Permission to publish on the rooibos matter was granted within this forum in February, 2020.

22 G. Dutfield, Intellectual Property Rights, Trade and Biodiversity (London, IUCN and Earthscan, 2000); K. McAfee, ‘Selling Nature to Save It? Biodiversity and Green Developmentalism’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 17, 2 (1999), pp. 133–54.

23 N. Heynen and P. Robbins, ‘The Neoliberalization of Nature: Governance, Privatization, Enclosure and Valuation’, Capitalism Nature Socialism, 16, 1 (2005), pp. 5–8.

24 Ibid.; S. Sullivan, ‘Elephant in the Room? Problematising “New” (Neoliberal) Biodiversity Conservation’, Forum for Development Studies, 33, 1 (2006), pp. 105–35; H. Svarstad, ‘A Global Political Ecology of Bioprospecting’, in S. Paulson and L.L. Gezon (eds), Political Ecology Across Spaces, Scales, and Social Groups (Ithaca, NY, Rutgers University Press, 2004), pp. 239–56.

25 M.A. Gollin, ‘An Intellectual Property Rights Framework for Biodiversity Prospecting’, in W.V. Reid, S.A. Laird, C.A. Meyer, R. Gámez, A. Sittenfeld, D.H. Janzen, M.A. Gollin and C. Juma (eds), Biodiversity Prospecting: Using Genetic Resources for Sustainable Development (Washington DC, World Resources Institute, Quito, Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidada, New York, Rainforest Alliance and Nairobi, African Centre for Technology Studies, 1993), pp. 159–97.

26 Secretariat of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), Convention on Biological Diversity: Text and Annexes (Montreal, United Nations, 2011), available at https://www.cbd.int/doc/legal/cbd-en.pdf, retrieved 21 December, 2023; Nagoya Protocol, ‘Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from Their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity’ (Nagoya, 29 October 2010), available at http://www.cbd.int/abs/text/, retrieved 21 December, 2023.

27 N.R. Crouch, E. Douwes, M.M. Wolfson, G.F. Smith and T.J. Edwards, ‘South Africa’s Bioprospecting, Access and Benefit-sharing Legislation: Current Realities, Future Complications, and a Proposed Alternative’, South African Journal of Science, 104, 9–10 (2008), pp. 355–66; R. Wynberg, ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? Implementing Access and Benefit-Sharing Legislation in South Africa’, in C.R. McManis and B. Ong (eds), Routledge Handbook of Biodiversity and the Law (London, Earthscan, 2017), pp. 198–218.

28 Taylor and Wynberg, ‘Regulating Access to South Africa’s Biodiversity and Ensuring the Fair Sharing of Benefits from its Use’, South African Journal of Environmental Law and Policy, 15, 2 (2008), pp. 217–43; Wynberg, ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?’, pp. 198–218.

29 South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, launching ‘Operation Phakisa’ to promote the Biodiversity Economy in 2018, projected the creation of 162,000 jobs and the generation of R47 billion (about US$2.6 billion) by 2030, based on a public investment of around R1,18 billion (about US$64 million); see A. Mitchley, ‘Developing the Biodiversity Economy can Create 162 000 jobs – Ramaphosa’, News24, Cape Town, 25 August 2018, available at https://www.news24.com/news24/developing-the-biodiversity-economy-can-create-162-000-jobs-ramaphosa-20180825, retrieved 21 December 2023.

30 Wynberg, ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?’, pp. 198–218.

31 R. Wynberg, ‘Rhetoric, Realism and Benefit-sharing – Use of Traditional Knowledge of Hoodia Species in the Development of an Appetite Suppressant’, The Journal of World Intellectual Property, 7, 6 (2004), pp. 851–76.

32 A. Barnet, ‘In Africa the Hoodia Cactus Keeps Men Alive. Now its Secret is “Stolen” to Make Us Thin’, The Observer, London, 17 June 2001.

33 See W.A.M. Blom, S.L. Abrahamse, R. Bradford, G.S.M.J.E. Duchateau, W. Theis, A. Orsi, C.L. Ward and D.J Mela, ‘Effects of 15-d Repeated Consumption of Hoodia Gordonii Purified Extract on Safety, Ad Libitum Energy Intake, and Body Weight in Healthy, Overweight Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial’, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 94, 5 (2011), pp. 1171–81.

34 See R. Wynberg, ‘Making Sense of Access and Benefit Sharing in the Rooibos Industry: Towards a Holistic, Just and Sustainable Framing’, South African Journal of Botany, 110 (2017), pp. 39–51; and, B. Gorelik, ‘Rooibos: An Ethnographic Perspective. A Study of the Origins and Nature of the Traditional Knowledge Associated with the Aspalathus Linearis’ (Stellenbosch, South African Rooibos Council, 2017).

35 South African San Council, ‘Bioprospecting, Access and Benefit Sharing the San; “Indigenous Knowledge Holders” of Certain Plants’, letter to the Director General, Department of Water and Environmental Affairs, 2 September 2010, Chennells Albertyn, Stellenbosch, South Africa.

36 Schroeder et al., ‘The Rooibos Benefit Sharing Agreement’, pp. 285–301.

37 San Council of South Africa, ‘Memorandum of Understanding between the San Council of South Africa and the National Khoi & San Council’, Upington, July 2013.

38 DEA, ‘Traditional Knowledge Associated with Rooibos and Honeybush Species in South Africa’, Report Prepared by Siyanda Samahlubi Consulting (Pretoria, Department of Environmental Affairs, 2014), available at https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Traditional-Knowledge-Rooibos-Honeybush-Species-SA.pdf, retrieved 21 December, 2023; DEA, ‘Statement on the Report of the Study Conducted on the Traditional Knowledge Associated with the Rooibos and Honeybush Species in South Africa’ (Pretoria, Department of Environmental Affairs, 2015), available at https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/environmental-affairs-study-rooibos-and-honeybush-species-south-africa-19-may, retrieved 21 December, 2023.

39 DEA, ‘Statement on the Report’.

40 Schroeder et al., ‘The Rooibos Benefit Sharing Agreement’, pp. 285–301.

41 The term ‘coloured’ is an apartheid-era ‘race’ term with derogatory and offensive implications that are not condoned by the authors. We use it in this article as a contextual and sociological reference, and as part of the arguments we make.

42 W. Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa, second edition (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001); S. Ives, ‘Farming the South African “Bush”: Ecologies of Belonging and Exclusion in Rooibos Tea’, American Ethnologist, 41, 4 (2014), pp. 698–713.

43 85 per cent and 77 per cent of the population in the rural areas of the Cederberg and Nieuwoudtville respectively earn (based on current exchange rates) less than R76,400 (US$4,052) per year, with 62.5 per cent and 59.5 per cent earning less than R38,200 (US$2,025) per year. See Statistics South Africa, ‘Cederberg NU’, statistics by place, available at https://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=4286&id=15 and Statistics South Africa, ‘Nieuwoudtville’, statistics by place, available at https://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=4286&id=6921, retrieved 21 December, 2023.

44 R.J. Coombe, S. Ives, and D. Huizenga, ‘The Social Imaginary of GIS in Contested Environments: Politicized Heritage and the Racialized Landscapes of South African Rooibos Tea’, in M. David and D. Halbert (eds), Sage Handbook on Intellectual Property (Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications, 2014), pp. 224–37, available at https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2644489, retrieved 21 December, 2023; Ives, Steeped in Heritage.

45 N. Penn, The Forgotten Frontier: Colonist and Khoisan on the Cape’s Northern Frontier in the 18th Century (Wetton, Double Storey Books, 2005); Wynberg, ‘Making Sense of Access and Benefit Sharing in the Rooibos Industry’, pp. 39–51.

46 Wupperthal was established as a Rhenish mission station in 1836 and, including its 11 satellite stations, has a population of some 2,250 inhabitants. In 1965 ownership of the property was passed to the Moravian Church of South Africa. The Moravian Church still owns and controls about 36,000ha of land around Wupperthal and land is leased from the church by communities, including small-scale rooibos farmers. About 600 people live in the Suid Bokkeveld, more than 90 per cent of whom are from groups that were discriminated against by Apartheid; see N. Oettlé, ‘Enhancing Sustainable Livelihoods in the Suid Bokkeveld’, in A. Douma and D. Hirsch (eds), Local Contributions to the Rio Conventions (Amsterdam, Both Ends, 2005), pp. 28–30.

47 E. Nel, T. Binns and D. Bek, ‘“Alternative Foods” and Community-Based Development: Rooibos Tea Production in South Africa’s West Coast Mountains’, Applied Geography, 27, 2 (2007), pp. 112–29.

48 S. Kruger and Associates, ‘Rooibos Socio-Economic Study’, report (Cape Town, Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, 2010).

49 R. Wynberg and S. Custers, ‘Determining a Fair Price and Equitable Benefit for Small-Scale Rooibos Tea Producers. An Analysis of the Costing and Pricing of Small-Scale Production of Organic and Fair Trade Rooibos, and Benefit Flows along the Rooibos Value Chain’, report (Netherlands, Fair Trade Assistance, October 2005).

50 Natural Justice, ‘The Khoikhoi Peoples’ Rooibos Biocultural Community Protocol’, 2019, represented by the National Khoisan Council and including the Cederberg belt region’s rooibos indigenous farming communities, available at https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/NJ-Rooibos-BCP-Web.pdf, retrieved 21 December, 2023.

51 Ibid., p. 14.

52 Andries Steenkamp was a San leader who played a critical role in negotiating many of the ABS agreements, beginning with Hoodia in 2003. He continued to be an active negotiator in the rooibos agreement prior to his untimely death in 2016.

53 Natural Justice, ‘The Khoikhoi Peoples’ Rooibos Biocultural Community Protocol’, p. 93.

54 Ives, Steeped in Heritage.

55 P.T. Mellet, The Lie of 1652: A Decolonised History of Land (Cape Town, Tafelberg, 2020); Bam, Ausi Told Me.

56 Wynberg, ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?’, pp. 198–218.

57 Interview with M. Bergh, managing director of Rooibos Limited, Clanwilliam, 11 September 2017, conducted by Rachel Wynberg; official from the Department of Environmental Affairs, personal communication, online via Zoom, 2018; SASC negotiator, personal communication, informal meeting with Rachel Wynberg, Paris, 19 June 2018.

58 University of Cape Town (UCT) and Environmental Monitoring Group (EMG), ‘Access and Benefit Sharing – Developments in the Rooibos Case’ (Nieuwoudtville, Voices for BioJustice Workshop, 2018).

59 Interview with small-scale rooibos farmer, Nieuwoudtville, 22 February 2020, conducted by Rachel Wynberg.

60 See, for example, Bam, Ausi Told Me.

61 Ibid.

62 B. Muthien and J. Bam, Rethinking Africa. Indigenous Women Reinterpret Southern Africa’s Pasts (Johannesburg, Jacana Media, 2021), p. 209.

63 Bam, Ausi Told Me.

64 J. Gaventa, ‘Finding the Spaces for Change: A Power Analysis’, Institute for Development Studies Bulletin, 37, 6 (2006), pp. 23–33, available at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1759-5436.2006.tb00320.x, retrieved 22 December, 2023.

65 Interview with small-scale rooibos farmer, Nieuwoudtville, 22 February 2020.

66 Heiveld Cooperative, Fair Wupperthal Cooperative and Sedervlei Rooibos Cooperative, Letter to Minister Molewa, Department of Environmental Affairs, email of 10 July 2018.

67 Ibid.

68 Ibid.

69 Email correspondence between the National Khoisan Council, the Rooibos Council and the Heiveld Cooperative, dated 23 April 2018, 24 April 2018, 10 May 2018, 14 May 2018, 17 May 2018; records of telephone conversations of 15 and 16 May 2018. Correspondence shared with the authors.

70 Interview with small-scale farmer, Nieuwoudtville, 20 February 2022, conducted by Rachel Wynberg.

71 B. Creecy, ‘Speech by Minister Creecy at the Signing Ceremony and Launch of Rooibos Traditional Knowledge Industry-Wide Benefit-Sharing Agreement’, Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment, 1 November 2019, available at https://www.dffe.gov.za/speech-minister-creecy-signing-ceremony-and-launch-rooibos-traditional-knowledge-industry-wide, retrieved 22 December, 2023.

72 Ibid.

73 Interview with M. Fredericks, online via Whatsapp, Cape Town, 12 February 2020, conducted by June Bam.

74 Ibid.

75 Creecy, ‘Speech’.

76 Interview with small-scale rooibos farmer, Nieuwoudtville, 22 February 2020, conducted by Rachel Wynberg.

77 Small-scale farmer, workshop held to discuss ABS and rooibos convened by EMG, UCT and Heiveld Cooperative, 22 February 2020, Nieuwoudtville.

78 Forest Peoples Programme, ‘Local Biodiversity Outlooks 2’.

79 Ives, Steeped in Heritage.

80 Bam, Ausi Told Me.

81 Penn, The Forgotten Frontier; M. Adhikari, Anatomy of a South African Genocide: The Extermination of the Cape San Peoples (Athens, Ohio University Press, 2010).

82 Ives, Steeped in Heritage.

83 Bam, Ausi Told Me.

84 UCT and EMG, ‘Access and Benefit Sharing’.

85 Small-scale farmer, workshop convened by EMG, UCT and Heiveld Cooperative, 17–18 April 2018.

86 Ibid.

87 Ibid.

88 L. Jansen and R. Sutherland, ‘The Khoikhoi Community’s Biocultural Rights Journey with Rooibos’, in F. Girard, I. Hall and C. Frison (eds), Biocultural Rights, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Protecting Culture and the Environment (London, Routledge, 2022), pp. 221–40.

89 Ibid.

90 Ibid., p. 234.

91 Interview, small-scale rooibos farmer, Nieuwoudtville, 2020; Natural Justice, ‘The Khoikhoi Peoples’ Rooibos Biocultural Community Protocol’, p. 98.

92 Ives, Steeped in Heritage; S. Ives, ‘The New Pomegranate: Rooibos Magic, Traditional Knowledge, and the Politics and Possibilities of Superfoods’, in R. Wilk and E. McDonell (eds), Critical Approaches to Superfoods (New York, Bloomsbury, 2020), pp. 37–56.

93 Wynberg, ‘Making Sense of Access and Benefit Sharing in the Rooibos Industry’, pp. 39–51.

94 Act No. 6 of 2019, Protection, Promotion, Development and Management of Indigenous Knowledge Act, available at https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201908/4264719-8act6of2019protectpromodevelopmanagementindigenousknowledgeact.pdf, retrieved 21 December 2023.

95 Small-scale farmer, workshop held to discuss ABS and rooibos convened by EMG, (UCT) and Heiveld Cooperative, Nieuwoudtville, 22 February 2020.

96 Ibid.

97 Nordling, ‘Rooibos Tea Profits Will be Shared’, pp. 19–21.

98 Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine, p. 252.

99 Ibid., p. 19.

100 Morris, ‘Royal Pharmaceuticals’, pp. 525–39; see also A. Mbembe, On the Postcolony (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001); P. Geschiere, The Perils of Belonging: Autochthony, Citizenship, and Exclusion in Africa and Europe (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2009).

101 D. Hodgson, ‘Introduction: Comparative Perspectives on the Indigenous Rights Movement in Africa and the Americas’, American Anthropologist, 104, 4 (2002), pp. 1037–49; A. Kuper, ‘The Return of the Native: CA Forum on Anthropology in Public’, Current Anthropology, 44, 3 (2003), pp. 389–402; J. Igoe, ‘Becoming Indigenous Peoples: Difference, Inequality, and the Globalization of East African Identity Politics’, African Affairs, 105, 420 (2006), pp. 399–420; M. Pelican, ‘Complexities of Indigeneity and Autochthony: An African Example’, American Ethnologist, 36, 1 (2009), pp. 52–65; Geschiere, The Perils of Belonging; Ives, Steeped in Heritage.

102 Ives, ‘The New Pomegranate’, p. 49.

103 Jansen and Sutherland, ‘The Khoikhoi Community’s Biocultural Rights Journey with Rooibos’, pp. 221–40; Morris, ‘Royal Pharmaceuticals’, pp. 525–39.

104 Ibid.

105 F. Michiels, U. Feiter, S. Paquin-Jaloux, D. Jungmann, A. Braun, M.A.P. Sayoc, R. Armengol, M. Wyss and B. David, ‘Facing the Harsh Reality of Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) Legislation: An Industry Perspective’, Sustainability, 14, 277 (2022), p. 6.

106 Creecy, ‘Speech’.

107 J. Ferguson, Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order (Durham, Duke University Press, 2006), p. 78.

108 S. Laird, R. Wynberg, M. Rourke, F. Humphries, M.R. Muller and C. Lawson, ‘Rethink the Expansion of Access and Benefit Sharing’, Science 367, 6483 (2020), pp. 1200–2.

109 N.S. Rose, Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999); T.M. Li, ‘Rendering Society Technical’, pp. 57–80.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rachel Wynberg

Rachel Wynberg Professor and Bio-economy Research Chair, Department of Environmental and Geographical Science, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch, 7701, Cape Town, South Africa. Email: [email protected]

Sarah Ives

Sarah Ives Lecturer, City College of San Francisco, 50 Frida Kahlo Way, San Francisco, CA 94112, USA. Email: [email protected]

June Bam

June Bam Professor and Director of the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, Research village, Bunting Road campus, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, Johannesburg, 2000, South Africa. Email: [email protected]