BIO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY PROTOCOLS AS A
COMMUNITY-BASED RESPONSE TO THE CBD
PART I / CHAPTER 2
understanding about the license process for accessing protected
Self-determination is enshrined in Article 3 of the UN
areas to collect medicinal plants and difficult relations with
Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and
their traditional leaders. Over the course of 5 months of meetings,
communities’ self-definition in a protocol is an important
they formed themselves into a group with a governance
aspect of their legal empowerment. It provides them a means
structure to assist them to present their views to various
through which to approach the law as a group that considers
stakeholders, including outsiders interested in their TK.
itself to be affiliated through a commonality (or commonalities)
of subjective importance to the community. This issue is closely
Linked to our comments in Chapter 1 about the importance
linked to the sharing of TK and free, prior and informed consent
of local integrity, all the communities we worked with reflected
discussed at subsection 3.7.
on the level at which they wanted to organize for the sake of
maintaining their ways of life. While high-level organization
has its benefits, such as through national traditional healers’
3.2 The Links Between a Way of Life and
Conservation of Biodiversity
associations, organizing cohesively around a common resource,
type of knowledge or cultural grouping has other benefits.
Central to the formulation of the BCPs were discussions
Each of the communities we worked with chose to organize
surrounding the way in which ILCs’ ways of life are connected
at what could be described as the most local level possible.
to the land, how their values contribute to the conservation
The boundaries they drew around their definition of
and sustainable use of their resources and how their lives are
community were linked to the concept of landscape or
contingent on a healthy ecosystem. The ILCs considered
common knowledge, as opposed to simply political or even
themselves a part of a dynamic interplay between the
cultural affiliation. The Bushbuckridge traditional healers are
environment and their ways of life, animals (in the case of the
from the Sepedi and Tsonga communities yet saw themselves
livestock keepers), culture, and spirituality. Each group spoke
as a group because of their specialist knowledge and reliance
generally about their way of life as well as specifically about
on the same medicinal plants. The two different groups of
how they either conserve the animal genetic resources they
Indian traditional healers also chose to organize at a local level
keep or the medicinal plants they use.
and around common resources.
The Raika, for example, state the following in their BCP about
Whilst talking with the groups about their conceptions of
their bio-cultural relationships:
community, discussions surrounding their spiritual origins
also emerged. The two pastoral communities in India and
We are indigenous nomadic pastoralists who have developed
Kenya, the Raika and Samburu, respectively, both felt that the
a variety of livestock breeds based on our traditional knowledge
mythology relating to their origins was central to their present
and have customarily grazed our camels, sheep, goats, and
identity. The Raika state:
cattle on communal lands and in forests. This means that our
livelihoods and the survival of our particular breeds are based
At a spiritual level, we believe that we were created by Lord
on access to forests, gauchar (village communal grazing lands)
Shiva. The camel was shaped by his wife, Parvati, and it was
and oran (sacred groves attached to temples). In turn, our
brought to life by Lord Shiva. But the camel’s playfulness caused
animals help conserve the biodiversity of the local ecosystems
a nuisance so Lord Shiva created the Raika from his perspiration
they graze within and we provide assistance to the area’s local
to take care of the camels. Our spiritual universe is linked to
communities. In this way, we see our indigenous pastoralist
our livestock breeding, and our ethnicity is inextricably
culture as both using and benefiting from the forests in a
4
intertwined with our breeds and way of life.
virtuous cycle.
The Samburu explain: Legend tells us that a man took three
Our livestock has become integral to the animal diversity in
wives: one bore a Samburu, one a Maasai and one a Laikipia.
forest areas. Predators such as panthers and wolves have
Our name, Samburu, comes from a bag we carry in which we
traditionally preyed on our livestock and we consider the
keep meat, called a “Samburr.”
5
resulting loss of livestock as a natural part of our integral
4 . Raika Biocultural Protocol, for more information contact the Raika Samaj Panchayat, c/o Lokhit Pashu Palak Sansthan.
5 . Supra note 2.
23