Biocultural community protocols for livestock keepers
Some community-based organizations have expressed concerns that establishing protocols
would entail implicit acceptance of the Intellectual Property Rights system. However at
a meeting of LIFE Network held in Khaba (Rajasthan) on 25 February 2010, participants
from India, Uganda, Kenya, Argentina and South Africa unanimously supported community protocols as the way forward and as a means of locally invoking Livestock Keepers’
Rights (Köhler-Rollefson, 2010b).
“Community”
The term “community” is fraught with problems and lacks clear definition. It can be understood in different ways. In the narrow sense, it refers to a group of people who interact
with each other according to a common set of rules, e.g., an ethnic group, tribe or village
population. But it also often used more loosely to identify grassroots people or beneficiaries, as opposed to NGOs or government or other development actors.
Because of these problems, indigenous activists object to the use of the term “communities,”
in UN Convention on Biological Diversity texts (Harry and Kanehe, 2005). On a practical
note, it has often proven difficult to identify representatives of a “community” who are
authorized to negotiate on that community’s behalf. Bio-prospectors have taken advantage
of this and tried to identify cooperative members or “cooperative” communities that would
be willing to enter into contracts to sell their resources and/or knowledge, although many
other communities might share the resources and knowledge, but not be willing to enter
into a contract (Ribeiro, 2005). This has helped developers to obtain “consent” for projects
with negative impacts, including the sale of land and exploitation for natural resources.
At a recent training workshop organized in spring 2010 for representatives of around 32
community-based organizations working with traditional healers from India, Sri Lanka,
Tanzania, Kenya and Ghana, the term “community” was defined as follows (Kabir Bavikatte, pers. comm.): “A community for the purposes of a biocultural community protocol
is a group of people who share resources and/or knowledge and could have either shared
values, shared ethnicity, a common cause, a shared activity, or be involved in collective
decision making” (see figure on next page).
Problems of method and process
It takes time for a community to establish a protocol, and the process should not be rushed.
It requires professionalism and dedication by the facilitating organization. While the process
should ideally be initiated and executed by the communities themselves, in many cases an
intermediary NGO will be instrumental in shepherding the process, simply because com-
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