Legal Protection for Indigenous Wisdom Planned
12/2/97
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Headline: Legal Protection for Indigenous Wisdom Planned
Source: The Environment News Service
Date: 12/2/97
Copyright 1997: ENS, Inc.
MADRID, Spain, December 2, 1997 (ENS) - Governments should give legal
recognition to traditional knowledge, an international workshop on
biodiversity has advised. The five-day "Workshop on Traditional Knowledge
and Biological Diversity," which concluded on Friday was convened by the
Montreal-based Secretariat of the United Nations Convention on Biological
Diversity as part of the ramp up to the fourth meeting of the Parties to
the agreement slated for Bratislava next May.
The workshop was attended by 370 delegates from 61 countries and parties to
the convention, 78 indigenous groups, 35 nonprofit organizations and 10
international agencies.
"This landmark meeting has broadened the base for conserving the world's
biological resources and created space for indigenous and local communities
to contribute to the implementation of the Convention," said Dr. Calestous
Juma, the convention's executive secretary.
Traditional and indigenous knowledge is covered under the Convention on
Biological Diversity by Article 8(j) which says that each country that
agrees to the treaty shall, "respect, preserve and maintain knowledge,
innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying
traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of
biological diversity..." Delegates at the workshop urged that national
governments create legal frameworks to ensure that indigenous and
traditional knowledge of plants, animals, lands and waters be protected.
Signatories to the treaty also agreed to promote this traditional knowledge
and to encourage the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use
of these practices with the indigenous peoples who originated them.
The workshop's results will be submitted to the fourth meeting of the
Parties to the Convention in Bratislava, Slovakia from May 4 to 15, 1998.
The words "biological diversity" refer to the number and variety of living
organisms on the planet. Recent estimates suggest that the earth is host to
some 13-14 million species, of which only 1.75 million have been
scientifically described.
These species and the ecosystems they form are being destroyed at an
unprecedented rate, primarily by human activities, according to a statement
by the Secretariat for the treaty. Flowering plants and vertebrate animals,
for example, have recently become extinct at an estimated rate of 50 to 100
times the average expected natural rate.
The Convention on Biodiversity opened for signature at the Earth Summit in
Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and has 171 Parties. It aims to conserve living
resources, promote their wise and sustainable use, and encourage a fair
system of sharing benefits from these resources.
Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden and
Switzerland contributed support to the workshop.