TASTE OF HOME: Identity, equity, clarity — and a cup of tea

As the COP17 Convention on Biological Diversity begins in Yerevan, Armenia, let’s look at South Africa’s rooibos, buchu and honeybush benefit sharing agreements.

South Africa has been blessed with an abundance of indigenous infusions. Beverages made from deliciously fragrant plants such as rooibos, buchu and honeybush are central to our nation’s sense of self. Rooibos is especially important – in a country where very few everyday pleasures cross divisions of race, class, gender and geography, it is a familiar friend to all.

Whether you favour the amber brew syrupy-sweet and milky, light and lemony or as a pot laden with leaves and stokkies, intensifying hour after hour at the back of a stove, rooibos is Mzansi’s traditional taste of home.

In recent years rooibos (and to a lesser extent buchu and honeybush) has gone global. These herbal teas now grace the elegant emporium shelves of Fortnum & Mason in London and the Parisian tea house tables of Mariage Frères. Celebrity fans abound. Chefs and mixologists have taken our humble leaves into a delicious diversity of cocktails and bonbons.

Their international importance extends beyond trendy tea parties and famous fans. As delegates gather in Yerevan, Armenia, for COP17 – the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (19-30 October 2026) – South Africa brings important experience to the debate about sharing biodiversity’s benefits fairly.

As with many indigenous ingredients, rooibos, buchu and honeybush are infused with unequal histories of land, labour and recognition. Colonial collecting and later research and commercialisation frequently treated African plants and knowledge as freely available inputs. The people who traditionally understood a plant’s uses and maintained its habitat or passed down preparations were often marginalised, even while their insights helped make business possible.

Calling a product “proudly South African” does not automatically right those wrongs. But the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity, South Africa’s National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act of 2004 (Nemba), the Bioprospecting, Access and Benefit-Sharing Regulations introduced in 2008 and replaced in 2015, and the 2019 Rooibos Traditional Knowledge Industry-Wide Benefit-Sharing Agreement have begun to address these inequalities.

The 2019 agreement recognises Khoi and San communities as traditional knowledge holders entitled to share in the commercial benefits of rooibos. Similar (but, as we shall see, different) agreements have subsequently been concluded for buchu and honeybush.

When South Africa’s delegates arrive in Yerevan for COP17, they bring significant success to the table. The rooibos agreement was the world’s first comprehensive, industry-wide benefit-sharing agreement under biodiversity legislation and is featured in the “good practice” section of the UN Human Rights Office’s Knowledge Gateway .