Human activities are driving climate and environmental changes, directly and indirectly causing rapid extinction of medicinal plant diversity, faster than any period during the recent geological past. About 80% of the world`s population still relies on traditional medicines. This extinction marks a threat to our rural communities whom primarily are the San (Khwe) they identify the devil`s claw as the most important medicinal plant which cures all diseases. The remedy have been used for many generational decades and the Khwe have gained a good reputational history as the traditional stewards of the devil`s claw plant. This is witnessed by images appearing and enshrined in many of their rock paintings as one of the few plants to have been drawn by the San people. The knowledge that have been passed to generations after generations which still exists today and they continue to hinge on the devil`s claw for medicinal prescription, both for domestic use and commercial purposes. However a number of intertwined environmental, social, economic and institutional risk factors combine in posing a potential threat to devil?s claw populations in communal open-access areas of CHA NG/13 prone to over-harvesting, especially during in years of high market demand.

These factors include: the fundamental biological destructiveness of harvesting secondary root tubers, the informal and unorganized nature of devil?s claw harvesting and trade in Botswana, the open-access nature of many of the communal areas where harvesting takes place, extreme poverty among harvesters, persistently low prices received by most of the harvesters, lack of long-term relationships between harvesters and exporters and between exporters and lead overseas buyers and little or no upgrading and value addition of devil?s claw tuber material within Botswana, prior to export. Risks of over-harvesting and unsustainable harvesting of devil?s claw methods which translates into adverse impacts on local Environmental benefits ,as well as related negative impacts on the livelihoods of local harvesters and the sustainability of devil?s claw supplies from CHA NG/13. This is to say, over-harvesting and unsustainable harvesting poses a substantial threat to the overall national (and regional) devil?s claw resource base, let alone the biological survival of the plant species.