l Editorial 5
Guest editors
Our guest editors for this issue are
Krystyna Swiderska (IIED), Kanchi Kohli
(Kalpavriksh, India and Campaign for
Conservation and Community Control over
Biodiversity), Harry Jonas and Holly
Shrumm (Natural Justice), Wim Hiemstra
(ETC COMPAS, The Netherlands) and
María Julia Oliva (Union for Ethical
Biotrade).
Krystyna Swiderska has been a
researcher at IIED for 17 years. During this
time, she has worked mainly on biodiversity and livelihoods issues, in particular on
the protection of traditional knowledge and
access to genetic resources and benefitsharing. Between 2005 and 2009, she
coordinated participatory action-research
with indigenous and local communities on
Protecting Community Rights over Traditional Knowledge: Implications of
Customary Laws and Practices. This project
was conducted with partners in Peru,
Panama, India, China and Kenya and developed a range of tools, including community
protocols. It developed the concept of
‘collective biocultural heritage’, building on
research with Quechua communities, as the
conceptual framework for action-research.
Krystyna set up the biocultural heritage
website www.bioculturalheritage.org to
share the results of the project. She has just
started coordinating a major new project on
the role of biocultural systems in adaptation
to climate change and food security.
Krystyna is also co-Director of the International Society for Ethnobiology’s Global
Coalition for Biocultural Diversity.
Kanchi Kohli has been involved in environment and forest governance-related
issues for close to 15 years. She has worked
with, amongst others, Kalpavriksh Environmental Action Group and the Campaign
for Conservation and Community Control
over Biodiversity, India, carrying out actionresearch campaigns and advocacy outputs
related to environment, biodiversity and
agriculture and its interface with industry,
1 See: www.ashoka.org/fellows
infrastructure and energy in India. Her
recent work explores the commodification
of nature and its implications for conservation and environmental governance.
Communication is a key component of
Kanchi's work. She writes regularly in
several national-level newspapers and
magazines, as well as for websites. Since
2004, she has co-coordinated an information dissemination service for forest and
wildlife cases in the Supreme Court of India.
Kanchi has also been campaign and
research adviser to national-level networks
and organisations related to coal and
climate, genetic engineering and conservation of agrobiodiversity, especially millets.
She has also been involved in putting
together publications on regulatory regimes
and decision-making processes around
environment, forests and biodiversityrelated policy frameworks.
Harry Jonas is a lawyer and co-founder
of Natural Justice: Lawyers for Communities and the Environment and an Ashoka
Fellow.1 Holly Shrumm also works for
Natural Justice and has a background in
anthropology, zoology and communitybased natural resource management.
Natural Justice works to uphold the principle that people should be involved in
decisions that affect them. Natural Justice
uses its understanding of international and
domestic legal frameworks to help indigenous peoples and local communities to
assert their rights to govern their lands,
natural resources and traditional knowledge. Natural Justice and its partners are
actively contributing to the development of
biocultural community protocols as a
widely accessible means by which communities can articulate their stewardship
ethics, assert their rights and affirm their
responsibilities. Based in Sabah, Malaysia,
Harry and Holly are co-coordinating the
Asia Regional Initiative on Biocultural
Community Protocols together with
COMPAS, the LIFE Network, UNU-IAS
and community partners in Pakistan, India