PART I / CHAPTER 1
A BIO-CULTURAL CRITIQUE OF THE CBD AND ABS
each one simultaneously focusing more on one particular
From the community perspective, the top-down emphasis
aspect of their natural resources or livelihoods and ignoring
of the Bonn Guidelines and the way in which environmental
others. From the ABS perspective, TK is viewed without its
law fractures the otherwise interconnected nature of ILCs’
cultural and environmental foundations. The incumbent
ways of life weakens communities’ ability to engage with the
REDD regime has the danger of putting disproportionate
law in such a way that further strengthens their bio-cultural
emphasis on trees as vehicles of carbon sequestration and
relationships. Lacking is a mechanism that empowers
neglecting the value of biodiversity for human habitation and
communities within the various environmental frameworks,
survival. This tendency leaves communities vulnerable to a
allowing them to appraise which laws to use to best
series of single-issue remedial interventions that equate to
promote their endogenous development plans.
less benefit than the sum of their parts because of their
lack of coherence.
6. Conclusion
The current crisis of Article 8(j) is that the perceived consensus
entering into good ABS agreements which uphold the spirit
on facts masks the real differences in values. The fact around
of Article 8(j), affirm a bio-cultural way of life and promote
which there seems to be an agreement in the WGABS is that
their bio-spiritual values. To put it differently, is it possible
TK is a commodity that can be traded, and that operationalizing
to have ABS agreements that foster the relationships
Article 8(j) requires a sound ABS agreement between
communities have with their ecosystems and contribute
communities and commercial interests. The disagreement on
to the security of their bio-cultural foundations? This question
values lies in what would constitute best practices and
has great relevance to the debate about what constitutes a
due process in a sound ABS agreement.
“good ABS agreement.” We turn to that question in Chapter 2
after communities themselves speak to these issues in
The problem however is that the moment we all agree on the
their bio-cultural protocols.
“fact” that TK is a purely tradable commodity, we sever the
linkage with its bio-cultural origins and thereby foreclose the
discussion as to how ABS agreements can affirm bio-cultural
ways of life of ILCs. To agree that TK is purely a commodity is
to agree on a set of industrialist values that denies the very
systems through which TK is produced and biodiversity is
conserved and sustainably used.
From this perspective, the IRABS at best will protect
communities from the misappropriation of their knowledge,
but has the danger of doing little to “respect, preserve and
maintain” other perhaps more fundamentally important
aspects of their knowledge, innovations and practices relevant
for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, such
as access to land and resources as well as respect for customary
laws and practices. The question that we are now confronted
with is whether it is possible for ILCs to ensure the local integrity
of the IRABS by asserting their rights over their TK and
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