214 Miri (Margaret) Raven and Daniel Robinson
the protocols, which were highly grounded in local customary law (or kastom)
and local contexts of biotrade, beliefs, stories and practicalities. This meant that
most communities asked us to work on highly practical protocols that in some
cases would be like guidelines in both English and local language, as well as
posters, flow charts and similar representations about what rules people accessing
the community’s knowledge (or a specific individual’s knowledge) must follow.
While these are still a work in progress (interrupted by COVID-19), there were
many requests that the protocols be as simple and practical as possible – and so
our drafts have been developed with this in mind. The community rules were
perceived by government as practically linked to the Nagoya Protocol ideas of
PIC. Additionally, for the national governments, there seemed a willingness to
consider the protocols as supporting their national legislation through local PIC
processes.
Third, the scale of protocol development was something that we have often
thought about. For our five- to six-year project (interrupted by COVID-19),
we have reached a protocol drafting stage for several communities in the
three countries (in Australia, most of our support has been for bush foods
and medicines enterprises and has focused more on biotrade agreements and
ABS clauses in contracts). The process of working with remote communities involved in biotrade is highly labour-intensive and time-consuming. This
means that we may potentially miss out on developing protocols with other
communities that may be interested. It is not clear if communities in these
three countries will self-generate their own protocols unless encouraged or
supported to do so in some way. In Australia, bush foods enterprises are quite
actively establishing contracts and agreements for their trading with clients,
but this is somewhat different to what we had envisaged as a community protocol. In Vanuatu and Cook Islands, it is unclear if there is legal, governance
and administrative capacity for local NGOs or government entities like the
Vanuatu Cultural Centre (VKS) to develop community protocols on a wide
scale. It is also not clear if there is enough funding, or if having a few protocols “here and there” in these countries is sufficient. For example, researchers
who are not acting ethically might circumvent the protocols by seeking out
other communities that are less well organised and willing to readily provide
access to the knowledge and resources. As our project continues in the next
three years and as borders re-open for travel and for our fieldwork, we will
continue to consider these challenges and gaps in the development of community protocols.
Conclusion
Countries such as Vanuatu and Cook Islands, and indeed many of the Pacific
Island countries, have strong legal and customary systems for the recognition of
custom, making them ideal places to work on strengthening custom systems and/
or developing BCPs. The existence of these pluralist legal orders aligns well with
the protocols, which were highly grounded in local customary law (or kastom)
and local contexts of biotrade, beliefs, stories and practicalities. This meant that
most communities asked us to work on highly practical protocols that in some
cases would be like guidelines in both English and local language, as well as
posters, flow charts and similar representations about what rules people accessing
the community’s knowledge (or a specific individual’s knowledge) must follow.
While these are still a work in progress (interrupted by COVID-19), there were
many requests that the protocols be as simple and practical as possible – and so
our drafts have been developed with this in mind. The community rules were
perceived by government as practically linked to the Nagoya Protocol ideas of
PIC. Additionally, for the national governments, there seemed a willingness to
consider the protocols as supporting their national legislation through local PIC
processes.
Third, the scale of protocol development was something that we have often
thought about. For our five- to six-year project (interrupted by COVID-19),
we have reached a protocol drafting stage for several communities in the
three countries (in Australia, most of our support has been for bush foods
and medicines enterprises and has focused more on biotrade agreements and
ABS clauses in contracts). The process of working with remote communities involved in biotrade is highly labour-intensive and time-consuming. This
means that we may potentially miss out on developing protocols with other
communities that may be interested. It is not clear if communities in these
three countries will self-generate their own protocols unless encouraged or
supported to do so in some way. In Australia, bush foods enterprises are quite
actively establishing contracts and agreements for their trading with clients,
but this is somewhat different to what we had envisaged as a community protocol. In Vanuatu and Cook Islands, it is unclear if there is legal, governance
and administrative capacity for local NGOs or government entities like the
Vanuatu Cultural Centre (VKS) to develop community protocols on a wide
scale. It is also not clear if there is enough funding, or if having a few protocols “here and there” in these countries is sufficient. For example, researchers
who are not acting ethically might circumvent the protocols by seeking out
other communities that are less well organised and willing to readily provide
access to the knowledge and resources. As our project continues in the next
three years and as borders re-open for travel and for our fieldwork, we will
continue to consider these challenges and gaps in the development of community protocols.
Conclusion
Countries such as Vanuatu and Cook Islands, and indeed many of the Pacific
Island countries, have strong legal and customary systems for the recognition of
custom, making them ideal places to work on strengthening custom systems and/
or developing BCPs. The existence of these pluralist legal orders aligns well with