BIO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY PROTOCOLS AS A
COMMUNITY-BASED RESPONSE TO THE CBD
PART I / CHAPTER 2
4. Lessons Learned and their Importance for IRABS and
the Implementation of Article 8(j)
4.1 Communities
importance that their TK and genetic resources is being given
under the international regime and their lack of awareness. It
The bio-cultural and legal empowerment that the five
confirms the need for community-lead processes to highlight
communities engaged with lead to a series of important
the importance with which the CBD views ILCs’ traditional ways
points about the implications of IRABS and the
of life and to explain the rights and remedies available to
implementation of Article 8(j). As a result of developing a
affirm them.
BCP, the ways in which the communities envisaged their
bio-cultural futures became clearer. The importance of
Second, each of the communities underscored their
Article 8(j) is elicited through the analysis of the linkages
dependence on the local ecosystems for their livelihoods
between the biodiversity within which ILPCs live, their
and explained how their TK is both an outcome of this
livelihoods, their spiritual beliefs and cultural understandings
relationship and something that allows them to continue their
of nature, and the ways in which their customary rules and
ways of life. The pastoralists’ ethno-veterinary TK, for example,
practices promote conservation and sustainable use of
is crucial to the survival of the livestock on which their own
biodiversity. At the same time, witnessing the daily challenges
lives depend. This issue, reflected by each community in their
they face and their general marginalization, especially in the
respective contexts, underscored the integral nature of TK to
case of the Samburu and the Raika, highlighted the limitations
ILCs’ lives. Their TK in this sense has an incalculable worth with
of the IRABS. Paradoxically, the communities are extraordinarily
no tangible monetary value because they have never
resilient yet vulnerable to ecological change and the
considered it as a tradable commodity. Working with
interference of external forces. Whilst they could benefit from
communities to appreciate the worth of their TK, indigenous
regulatory frameworks that can guarantee them increased
breeds and plant genetic resources is not new, but we found
bio-cultural security, they are also susceptible to being harmed
that such bio-cultural empowerment is vitally important in
by well-intentioned but badly implemented laws or ABS deals.
the context of IRABS. This point is amplified when one considers
the different types of TK communities have and the over-
All five communities said they found the BCP process useful for
emphasis that IRABS is placing on commercially viable
a number of reasons and felt emboldened to know that their
knowledge over knowledge or ecological understanding that
ways of life are considered important at the international level,
is more important for their ways of life.
even if the national action required of signatories to the CBD
has not yet been seen at the local level. We draw on some of
Third, because the knowledge holders had received their TK
the key issues from the above excerpts of the communities’
from ancestors and others in the community, the idea of
BCPs to highlight the importance of the development of BCPs
selling their TK or providing it to strangers from outside the
to ILCs in the context of the incumbent IRABS.
community was a highly novel concept. Communities found
it useful to approach new ideas such as the ownership or
First, the communities had neither previously considered
transfer of animal genetic resources and TK from the
entering into an ABS deal nor thought through the whole range
perspective of customary laws and practices that underpin
of associated issues that should be engaged with.
the usual community-based sharing of these resources. The
Some, such as the Bushbuckridge traditional healers and
communities also emphasized the need for FPIC before the
Samburu pastoralists, had been visited by researchers in the
use of any of their TK and genetic resources as being a part
past, but at most felt disgruntled by the lack of feedback they
of customary law, as opposed to something new that has
had received. They did not know that an international regime
emerged from the international negotiations. This interestingly
is being negotiated or that each of their respective countries
highlights the fact that each community already has customary
(Kenya, India and South Africa) has domestic bio-prospecting
laws and practices relating to the transfer of genetic resources
regulations. There is a striking disparity between the
and TK within their own contexts in order to promote genetic
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