Pygeum: Overharvesting and the CITES Listing

Table of Contents

1. The Tree and Where It Grows
2. An Entirely Wild-Harvested Medicine
3. The Scale of the Bark Trade
4. The 1995 CITES Appendix II Listing
5. Export Suspensions and the European Union Ban
6. Cameroon at the Centre
7. Who Earns What
8. Traditional Knowledge and Benefit Sharing
9. Local Medicine in the Tree's Home Range
10. From Wild Tree to Cultivated Crop
11. A Timeline of the Trade
12. Key Research Papers
13. Connections

The Tree and Where It Grows

Prunus africana, the African cherry, is a large evergreen tree of highland ("Afromontane") forests. Ecological surveys from Ethiopia show where it fits in those forests:

• Along the Walga River in south-western Ethiopia, a 2018 survey of 50 plots identified a Brucea antidysenterica–Prunus africana plant community at mid altitude, about 2,359 to 2,676 metres, the community with the highest evenness of species. Human disturbance and heavy livestock grazing were the main threats in lower communities.
• In the Seqela dry Afromontane forest of north-western Ethiopia, a 2025 survey of 52 plots ranked Prunus africana the second most dominant woody species (importance value 8.68) and identified a Prunus africana–Croton macrostachyus community.
• In the nearby Endba-Zend forest, a 2025 survey identified a Vachellia abyssinica–Prunus africana community and reported that selective tree cutting and overgrazing cause significant disruption to the forest.

Beyond Ethiopia, bark has been exported from Cameroon, Madagascar, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya and Burundi, according to the trade studies described below.

Back to Table of Contents

An Entirely Wild-Harvested Medicine

A 2003 review in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology titled "The African cherry (Prunus africana): can lessons be learned from an over-exploited medicinal tree?" set out the basic facts as they stood at the turn of the century:

• The bark used for prostate treatment was entirely wild-collected.
• The major exporters of bark were Cameroon, Madagascar, Equatorial Guinea and Kenya.
• Two European companies produced 86% of the world's bark extract, for their own products and for the open market.
• The review concluded that wild collection "is no longer sustainable (and probably never was) where harvest seriously affects morbidity and mortality rates of harvested populations" — that is, where bark stripping was injuring and killing the trees.

Back to Table of Contents

The Scale of the Bark Trade

The 2003 review gave the size of the trade at its height:

• World exports of dried bark peaked at 3,225 tonnes in 1997.
• By 2000 they had fallen to an estimated 1,350 to 1,525 tonnes a year.
• Bark extract production was about 6,370 to 7,225 kg a year, worth an estimated US$4.36 million a year.
• In 2000, the largest bark exporter in Africa closed its extraction factory in Cameroon, which the review attributed to "complex ecological, social, and economic factors".

By these estimates, a tonne of dried bark corresponds to only a few kilograms of extract — roughly 1,400 tonnes of bark for about 7 tonnes of extract — which helps explain how a modest supplement market could consume a large number of trees.

Back to Table of Contents

The 1995 CITES Appendix II Listing

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is a treaty that controls international trade in listed plants and animals. It has three lists, or appendices. Appendix I covers species threatened with extinction, where commercial trade is generally banned. Appendix II covers species not necessarily threatened with extinction now, but whose trade has to be controlled to avoid use incompatible with their survival; international trade is allowed, but requires an export permit from the exporting country. Appendix III covers species listed at the request of a single country.

The 2003 review reported that Prunus africana has been listed in CITES Appendix II since 1995. In practice this means that every international shipment of its bark or extract has to be covered by a permit, and that exporting countries are expected to show that the trade does not harm the species' survival. The current listing can be checked in the official CITES Appendices.

A listing in Appendix II is not a ban. It is a licensing system, and its effectiveness depends on whether exporting countries can measure their wild stocks and set sustainable quotas.

Back to Table of Contents

Export Suspensions and the European Union Ban

A 2016 study in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, "Power, policy and the Prunus africana bark trade, 1972–2015", drew on 30 years of work with the species, trade data from 1991 to 2012 and fieldwork in 2013 and 2014. It described two major policy shifts:

• CITES restrictions on exports from Burundi, Kenya and Madagascar.
• A European Union ban on imports, imposed in 2007 and lifted in 2011.

The combined effect was to concentrate the trade. Cameroon's share of the global bark trade rose from an average of 38% between 1995 and 2004 to 72.6%, or 658.6 tonnes, in 2012, putting Cameroon "at the center of this international policy arena".

Back to Table of Contents

Cameroon at the Centre

The 2016 study's findings on Cameroon and neighbouring countries were stark:

• Wild populations of the tree were vulnerable even in several protected areas in Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in forest reserves of Madagascar.
• The authors judged that hopes for decentralised, community governance of the harvest were "misplaced due to elite capture, market monopolies and subsidized management regimes".
• The costs of the inventories, monitoring and management needed for sustainable wild harvest were "far greater than the benefits to harvesters".
• The authors concluded that without large international donor subsidies, sustainable wild harvest "cannot be sustained".

The study also stressed the need to conserve the genetic and chemical diversity of wild populations — trees from different regions differ, and losing local populations loses that variation.

Back to Table of Contents

Who Earns What

The 2016 study put numbers on the value chain:

• At a European price of about US$6 per kg of bark, Cameroon's 2012 bark quota of 658.675 tonnes was worth over US$3.9 million, the majority of it accruing to a single company.
• In 2012, the 48 active harvesters working inside Mount Cameroon National Park received less than US$1 a day from bark harvests.
• Their net bark price was US$0.33 per kg, which the authors calculated as 43% of the farm-gate price for wild-harvested bark.

A 2014 review by researchers at the University of Oxford examined the same trade from the angle of fairness: it described the history of Prunus africana extraction as "a cautionary tale for the unbridled exploitation of medicinal plants", and noted that little research had addressed the traditional resource rights of the communities whose knowledge and forests supplied the bark.

Back to Table of Contents

Traditional Knowledge and Benefit Sharing

The 2014 Oxford review placed the pygeum trade in the context of the international agreements that now govern access to biological resources and traditional knowledge:

• The Nagoya Protocol, a supplementary agreement to the Convention on Biological Diversity, on access to genetic resources and fair sharing of the benefits from their use.
• The World Trade Organization's TRIPS agreement on intellectual property.
• Two African regional frameworks: the Swakopmund Protocol and the initiative of the Organisation Africaine de la Propriété Intellectuelle.

The review discussed how access-and-benefit-sharing principles could be built into future traditional-medicine research projects in Africa, so that communities share in the value of the plants and knowledge they provide.

Back to Table of Contents

Local Medicine in the Tree's Home Range

The tree matters to the people who live near it, independently of the export trade.

• In the Sheka Zone of south-western Ethiopia, an ethnobotanical study of 414 informants recorded 266 medicinal plant species; Prunus africana was one of the five highest-ranked plants for gastrointestinal problems. The authors called the area a reservoir of medicinal plants needing conservation priority and urged attention to harvesting impacts.
• In Uganda, a survey of 158 traditional medical practitioners in four regions recorded 98 plant species used for family planning and reproductive health; Prunus africana was the most frequently cited (14 citations, percentage use value 45.2%). The study also found that 61% of the plant species were harvested from the wild.

These are records of traditional use, not tests of effectiveness. They show that the export trade competes with local medicine for the same trees.

Back to Table of Contents

From Wild Tree to Cultivated Crop

Both major trade studies point in the same direction. The 2003 review described the species as "at the beginning of a transition from an exclusively wild-collected species to that of a cultivated medicinal tree", and examined conservation practices, enrichment planting in forests, small- and large-scale cultivation, and protection of genetic resources.

The 2016 study went further. It argued that what is needed to supply current and future demand is "separate, traceable P. africana bark supply chains based on cultivated stocks", and that on-farm production would benefit thousands of small-scale farmers, including women, for whom wild harvesting is too onerous. It noted that this shift requires support from CITES and the European Union, and would raise prices paid to growers compared with wild harvest.

For a buyer of pygeum, the research raises a question that labels rarely answer: whether the bark in a product came from wild or farmed trees.

Back to Table of Contents

A Timeline of the Trade

• Late 1960s — bark extracts begin to be used for benign prostatic hyperplasia (a 2003 review dated the use to "the last 35 years").
• 1972 — the starting point of the 2016 study's history of the international bark trade.
• 1995 — Prunus africana listed in CITES Appendix II.
• 1997 — world exports of dried bark peak at 3,225 tonnes.
• 2000 — exports estimated at 1,350 to 1,525 tonnes; the largest African exporter closes its extraction factory in Cameroon.
• 2007 — the European Union bans imports.
• 2011 — the EU ban is lifted.
• 2012 — Cameroon supplies 72.6% (658.6 tonnes) of the global bark trade; harvesters in Mount Cameroon National Park earn under US$1 a day.
• 2013–2014 — field "ground-truthing" for the 2016 trade study.
• 2016 — that study concludes that sustainable wild harvest depends on donor subsidies and calls for cultivated, traceable supply chains.

Back to Table of Contents

Key Research Papers

1. Stewart KM. The African cherry (Prunus africana): can lessons be learned from an over-exploited medicinal tree? Journal of ethnopharmacology. 2003;89(1):3-13. PubMed PMID: 14522426
2. Cunningham A, Anoncho VF, Sunderland T. Power, policy and the Prunus africana bark trade, 1972-2015. Journal of ethnopharmacology. 2016;178:323-33. PubMed PMID: 26631758
3. Bodeker G, van 't Klooster C, Weisbord E. Prunus africana (Hook.f.) Kalkman: the overexploitation of a medicinal plant species and its legal context. Journal of alternative and complementary medicine (New York, N.Y.). 2014;20(11):810-22. PubMed PMID: 25225776
4. Meragiaw M, Woldu Z, Martinsen V, et al. Woody species composition and diversity of riparian vegetation along the Walga River, Southwestern Ethiopia. PloS one. 2018;13(10):e0204733. PubMed PMID: 30332486
5. Birhanu L, Moges G, Amsalu N, et al. Woody species diversity, structure and community distribution along environmental gradients of Seqela Dry Afromontane forest in Northwestern Ethiopia. PloS one. 2025;20(1):e0313020. PubMed PMID: 39823466
6. Dessie Y, Amsalu N, Awoke B, et al. Floral diversity, structural integrity, and regeneration patterns of Endba-Zend dry Afromontane forest in Northwestern Ethiopia. BMC ecology and evolution. 2025;25(1):49. PubMed PMID: 40394461
7. Kassa Z, Asfaw Z, Demissew S. An ethnobotanical study of medicinal plants in Sheka Zone of Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional State, Ethiopia. Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine. 2020;16(1):7. PubMed PMID: 32024539
8. Adia MM, Savina A, Jane N, et al. Medicinal plant species used for contraception and reproductive health care in rural Uganda. Heliyon. 2025;11(1):e41518. PubMed PMID: 39844971

PubMed Topic Searches

1. PubMed: Prunus africana conservation
2. PubMed: Prunus africana bark harvesting sustainability
3. PubMed: Prunus africana genetic diversity
4. PubMed: Medicinal plant trade and CITES

Back to Table of Contents

Connections

• All Herbs
• Pygeum (Prunus africana) — the main topic page
• Pygeum Benefits Hub — all four deep dives
• BPH Evidence — what the bark is used for
• Bark Chemistry and Mechanisms — what is in the bark
• Pygeum vs Saw Palmetto and Nettle — the other prostate herbs
• Goldenseal: Sustainability — another medicinal plant strained by wild harvest
• Pain and Men's Health Herbs — the category
• Saw Palmetto — a prostate herb from a different continent
• Stinging Nettle — a prostate herb that grows as a weed
• Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia — the condition driving demand

Back to Table of Contents