Indigenous Peoples Defend Traditional Knowledge
[c] 2000, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
November 8, 2000
By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Nov 7 (IPS) - Indigenous representatives charge that international patent and copyright laws are ''inappropriate'' for protecting their systems of traditional knowledge, and that such private rights inherently conflict with native beliefs on ''rights to use, and obligations to respect, the natural world.''
Experts gathered at a meeting organised by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), indicated that traditional knowledge requires new formulas for its protection in order to preserve it from exploitation and extinction.
To do so, the most promising options would be ''to bridge traditional collective rights with the more modern and western concept of intellectual property rights,'' concluded the delegates at the UNCTAD meeting.
From the trade and development perspective, the systems to preserve traditional knowledge should ensure that the benefits produced are distributed among the custodians and developers of such knowledge.
Poorer countries could boost their development and trade by utilising traditional knowledge, defined as ''the knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles'' as well as ''indigenous and local technologies,'' according to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
UNCTAD, meanwhile, emphasised that the ''bridge'' approach poses the question of responsibility of the holders and users of the knowledge, and of the equitable distribution of profits obtained from the utilisation of the resources provided by indigenous knowledge of biodiversity.
But the idea of protecting traditional knowledge under the international regulations for intellectual property did not sit well with the representatives of indigenous communities at the meeting.
Currently, intellectual property rights (IPRs) ''are founded on private, economic rights, whereas indigenous peoples' systems are values-based'' and include the rights to utilise the natural world, but also to respect it, said the indigenous delegates.
At the UNCTAD conference, held in Geneva last week, the native leaders called for a ban on the patenting of life forms because it ''attacks the values and livelihoods of indigenous and traditional peoples.''
A representative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Douglas Nakashima, backed the position of the indigenous communities.
The existing arrangement for protecting IPRs ''serve to protect knowledge by setting the rules for their commercial exploitation but in fact deliver up local knowledge to the global marketplace.''
The UNESCO representative based his argument on the fact that developed countries hold approximately 95 percent of all patents in the world.
But the vast majority of genetic resources from plants and other forms of biodiversity are found in, or originate from, developing countries, according to the World Health Organisation.
The IPR regimen has its defenders, however, because it ''can continue to evolve, to meet new needs,'' including many of the claims expressed by holders of traditional knowledge, maintained Wend Wendland of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
According to WHO studies, more than 80 percent of the world population relies on traditional medicine for primary health care.
India, for example, has more than 600,000 medical professionals with degrees in classical and traditional health systems, and more than a million community providers of services in traditional medicine.
As far as food, the non-governmental Rural Advancement Foundation International calculates that two-thirds of the world population would not be able to survive if they did not have the sustenance provided as a result of local knowledge of plants, animals, insects, microbes and farming systems.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than 90 percent of the food consumed is obtained through traditional agricultural practices.
''In indigenous communities worldwide, traditional knowledge has prevented land and soil degradation, fisheries depletion, biodiversity erosion and deforestation,'' said Robert Hamwey of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
But traditional knowledge and cultural and biological diversity are disappearing at alarming rates.
Half of all existing plant species are expected to be extinct within 3,000 years and 90 percent of all languages will be extinct within a century, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
The disappearance of languages means the loss of knowledge, and the process is being accelerated by cultural change and globalisation, said the Fund's Gonz lo Oviedo.
The conference of experts organised by UNCTAD concluded with a recommendation for ''preserving cultural diversity and local systems of self-management'' in order to protect traditional knowledge.