It is unlikely that Tresia Hamutenya would have had the courage to wake up early morning to be at her village’s central point by 06h00. But on 9 August 2022, she decided to make the long queue to participate in her first Devil’s Claw harvest with other women harvesters from around her village, Katope, about 10 kilimetres from Mpungu, in the Kavango West region of Namibia.

Organised by Namibia Nature Foundation (NNF), a consortium under the Namibia Integrated Landscape Approach for Enhancing Livelihoods and Environmental Governance to Eradicate Poverty (NILALEG) Project, the harvest brought together a total of 186 community members, which includes 137 women and 49 men, of which the majority were youth from 10 villages namely Nepara l, Nepara ll, Tjohwa, Nkulivere, Gava, Katope, Ngandu, Kasimba, Nkorose and Siraro villages. 

As a 32-year-old single mother of three, Hamutenya relies on her small business selling sweets and biscuits around Katope to support her children, aged 12, nine and seven. Her business has not been profitable enough to sustain herself and family; however, her dream is to expand her business and own a convenience store in Katope. She ruminates on the times she does not make profit:

“On many occasions, I do not make profit from my small business, and I still have to pay school fees for my children who all depend on me. Additionally, since I live in my family home, I am expected to contribute to household upkeep,” she said. 

With her, self-determination and desire to improve the lives and livelihoods of her family through sustainable harvesting of Devil’s Claw (Harpophytum procumbens), she was undaunted by the physical challenge of the long road ahead to achieve her dreams.

The sustainable harvesting training provided to women like Hamutenya is lifechanging.  Sustainable harvesting techniques of Devil’s Claw ensures the long-term use of the plant resource, which involves only partially harvesting the plant’s underground tubers but allowing it time to recover for re-harvest in future. 

One of the obstacles to increasing harvest productivity in Katope is that Devil’s Claw harvesting and sales by harvesters to traders only takes place after the end of the rainy season. The Namibian Devil’s Claw policy states that it can be harvested from March to October, but harvesting generally starts in June, especially with climate change altering everything. 

As a signed-up harvester, Hamutenya was one of the women who took advantage of the opportunity and applied their newly acquired knowledge.  The fruits of their sweat and labour were visible at the formal sales day by harvesters to traders.  

When reflecting on her first formal buying event, Hamutenya smiled.

“With the two sacks of the Devil’s Claws that I harvested, I earned N$1 500.00. With this money, I will pay school fees for my children; buy school uniforms for my boys, as their school clothes are torn and put food on the table for entire household. I usually earn N$750 per month from my small business, this income really means a lot to me and family.”    

She is happy that her harvest of the Devil’s Claw (Ekakata in Rukwangali) will be used as a medicine for treating arthritis, reducing pain and fever, and stimulating digestion.  

More recently, it has become an important product for export to the European market with the biggest exports to France and Germany. In Namibia, Devils’ Claw is listed as a protected species under the 1977 Nature Conservation Ordinance of the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, and may not be harvested or exported without the correct permits.  Hamutenya is a symbol of determination, motivation, and inspiration for other harvesters, not only for the women harvesters of Katope and Kavango West Region and all of Namibia. 

The NILALEG Project is being implemented through the ministry of environment, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with funding from the Global Environmental Facility (GEF). The project is working in the forest, savannah, and rangeland of Namibia’s northern areas to pilot an integrated landscape management approach, reducing poverty through sustainable nature-based livelihoods,  as well as protecting and restoring forests as carbon sinks, and promoting land degradation neutrality.

*Frieda Lukas is the communications associate of the UNDP in Namibia