The initiative involves looking for special genes or plants that can be used to manufacture medicine, industrial products and food supplements for commercial purposes.

Kenya has not tapped into this market that now stands at about $600 billion globally. This is despite its richness in biodiversity. International researchers and multinational drug manufacturing companies are now looking for ways to exploit the country’s biodiversity, bearing in mind its potential to contribute towards discovery of medicine extracts.

For example, the strain used to manufacture a drug used for treating diabetes known as Acarbose came from Ruiru. However, the community around there has not benefited much from its discovery.

Bioprospecting —exploring and sampling the ecosystem for commercial purposes— is not common in Kenya due to lack of research and product development, poor technology, uncoordinated information gathering, lack of skills and awareness.

Dr Wilbur Lwande, a researcher at International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), says bioprospecting can be a tool of economic development, but only if products are developed and proceeds from the sale of the products shared among locals and some of it used for natural resources conservation.

“There is need for partnership among the various bodies with capacities that can help in research, develop and market products from nature,” said Dr Lwande.

The group has been working on a $100,000 pilot project with a community around Kakamega forests to manufacture antioxidant and antidepressant herbal medicine known as Mondia Tonic (mkombela) and Naturub used for relief from congestion, insects bites, muscular aches and pains.

When it started, the community used to make an average sales amounting to Sh50,000 per month. However, last September ICIPE contracted a processional organisation MilbaBrands Associates, to brand and market the Naturub. Since then revenue from this product has increased to Sh500,000 monthly.

“We had to get a professional body to scale the business up which included marketing, branding and handling the distribution of the product,” said Fredrick Nduguli, a consultant in bio- enterprise at ICIPE.

The local community pays royalties to the research institutions and the University of Nairobi helps them on branding and the rest is shared among the locals.Pro. Gideon Nyamasyo of University of Nairobi says the local community can help preserve the environment if they know its value.

Other research bodies involved in the initiative include Kenya Forestry Research Institute, also known as bioprospecting.

Fuente: http://www.bdafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12321&Itemid=5813