Mission

The Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme (BDCP) is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization dedicatedto ensuring the well-being of tropical ecosystems and their human inhabitants through practical, innovative mechanisms of sustainable development.

• To encourage the understanding of and encourage the appreciation of tropical ecosystems of forests, coastal marines, woodlands, savannahs and drylands as sources of biological resources which could be used as instrument of sustainable development.
• To link the well-being of tropical ecosystems with the health of human inhabitants by providing affordable health care for people living in tropical countries through the development of plant based medicines for the treatment of tropical diseases.
  
• To assist indigenous communities, private institutions and individuals in tropical countries to enter into biodiversity prospecting business (local, national, and international) that guarantees them good returns for their labour while at the same time protecting forest resources.
  
• To seek international support for critically under-funded community based BIODIVERSITY conservation project.
• Todevelop resource management programs in the various tropical ecosystems based on respect for indigenous or traditional ecological knowledge
  
• To develop and establish partnership arrangements with Northern based institutions and agencies in which indigenous communities are recognized as the primary stakeholder and that human needs should be the paramount consideration in any conservation and development project.
  
• To develop the technical capacity and the scientific capability in tropical countries that will enable them to study their own environmental problems and to participate in the development of their biological resources, and the conservation of the resource base.
  
• To study the factors that influence conservation of biological diversity of tropical forest and to encourage exchange of ideas, data and experience among experts working on the subject.
  
• To participate in developing a consensus with governments, community groups, other NGOs, private sector interest groups, and international funding agencies on those aspects of national environmental policy that concerns biodiversity development and conservation.
• To promote the studies and research in the area of biological diversity development and conservation.

The continent of Africa is endowed with enormous biological resources; from the mangrove swamps of the Niger Delta, the marshes of Northern Zululand and the coral reefs of the Red Sea to the dense rainforests of Zaire, Cameroon and Congo with their high degrees of endemism; from the huge savanna belt to the unique flora of Cape Town and the Ruwenzoris, better known as the Mountains of the Moon; from the desolate Sahara, Namib and Kalahari deserts to the Nile and Congo river systems.

These areas have been well maintained by their human inhabitants for many thousands of years. However, increasing global industrialization in the last century has disrupted the balance between human consumption and natural regeneration to the point where resources are becoming seriously depleted. The path that BDCP has chosen towards re-establishing the balance is to ensure that resource development is done in a conscious, conservation-oriented way. In this regard, we have undertaken several in-depth studies of African ecosystems which assess their biological diversity and ecological dynamics, their value to humans and their sustainability.

As Africa's genetic resources are in danger of disappearing, so are the knowledge and cultural traditions of its peoples. We are taking steps to improve this situation by undertaking development projects based on traditional knowledge which benefit local communities. Our present focus is on developing natural products for the African phytomedicine (herbal medicine), personal care, crop protection and pharmaceutical industries. In all projects, materials are sustainably harvested and profits are returned to the people (such as traditional healers) or communities from which they are collected.