Community Protocols and Biocultural Rights 5
that biodiversity is declining at much lower rate in Indigenous lands than elsewhere (Garnett et al., 2018). Recent studies also stress the prominent role that
small-scale farmers play as innovators in society. They have ensured and continue
to ensure the spatial and social development and distribution of genetic, morphological, and varietal diversity – diversity that is increasingly being recognised as
critical for farming productivity and climate change adaptation (Coomes et al.,
2015).
IPLCs, farmers, rangers, pastoralists, and foresters, who are the focus of this
book, are very diverse in the way they produce food and products, manage landscapes, safeguard agrobiodiversity, build knowledge about food and medicines,
and pass this and associated intangible heritage onto future generations. Nevertheless, they share many common concerns and have often been subjected to
similar centuries-long ordeals: poverty, discrimination and violence, displacement and land confiscation, limited access rights to land and resources, lack of or
limited access to culturally appropriate healthcare services and education, and a
lack of or limited access to basic services such as potable water, energy, and sanitation. They are among those who are at a greater risk from environmental harm
(Knox, 2018, para. 41). These are but a few of the problems that IPLCs face, to
which may be added more recent encroachments upon their customary rights,
together with legal and physical conflicts with mining companies, oil corporations, logging companies, and the agri-food industry.
Biodiversity and Access and Benefit-Sharing
None of the issues cited above fall outside the scope of the study. However, this
book is primarily concerned with biodiversity in the context of ABS.
The CBD, which came into force in 1993, reaffirmed “that States have
sovereign rights over their own biological resources” (on this issue, see Mgbeoji,
2003), thereby steering the international community away from the idea that
genetic resources are a “common heritage of mankind” – an international legal
concept that was previously fashionable and which was conveniently, not to say
strategically, recast by industrialised countries to satisfy their extractive agenda
(ibid.).
The first objective of the CBD is to conserve biodiversity and, through Article
8( j), the instrument recognises the role of IPLCs in this conservation. Yet, this
new ABS regime has laid down a new framework that problematically centred
around the sustainable use of resources (Rosendal, 1991, p. 28) and the market
value of the components of biodiversity. As Daniel Robinson recalls, the CBD is
a hard-fought compromise negotiated by biodiverse and mega-diverse countries,
i.e. the “Global South” (Robinson, 2014, p. 3). In the midst of the controversial
Uruguay round of negotiations held by the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (GATT) that were to result in an unprecedented extension of intellectual
property rights (IPRs),
10 the aim of the CBD was to ensure that access to genetic
materials from plants, animals, and microbes with potential value by researchers
that biodiversity is declining at much lower rate in Indigenous lands than elsewhere (Garnett et al., 2018). Recent studies also stress the prominent role that
small-scale farmers play as innovators in society. They have ensured and continue
to ensure the spatial and social development and distribution of genetic, morphological, and varietal diversity – diversity that is increasingly being recognised as
critical for farming productivity and climate change adaptation (Coomes et al.,
2015).
IPLCs, farmers, rangers, pastoralists, and foresters, who are the focus of this
book, are very diverse in the way they produce food and products, manage landscapes, safeguard agrobiodiversity, build knowledge about food and medicines,
and pass this and associated intangible heritage onto future generations. Nevertheless, they share many common concerns and have often been subjected to
similar centuries-long ordeals: poverty, discrimination and violence, displacement and land confiscation, limited access rights to land and resources, lack of or
limited access to culturally appropriate healthcare services and education, and a
lack of or limited access to basic services such as potable water, energy, and sanitation. They are among those who are at a greater risk from environmental harm
(Knox, 2018, para. 41). These are but a few of the problems that IPLCs face, to
which may be added more recent encroachments upon their customary rights,
together with legal and physical conflicts with mining companies, oil corporations, logging companies, and the agri-food industry.
Biodiversity and Access and Benefit-Sharing
None of the issues cited above fall outside the scope of the study. However, this
book is primarily concerned with biodiversity in the context of ABS.
The CBD, which came into force in 1993, reaffirmed “that States have
sovereign rights over their own biological resources” (on this issue, see Mgbeoji,
2003), thereby steering the international community away from the idea that
genetic resources are a “common heritage of mankind” – an international legal
concept that was previously fashionable and which was conveniently, not to say
strategically, recast by industrialised countries to satisfy their extractive agenda
(ibid.).
The first objective of the CBD is to conserve biodiversity and, through Article
8( j), the instrument recognises the role of IPLCs in this conservation. Yet, this
new ABS regime has laid down a new framework that problematically centred
around the sustainable use of resources (Rosendal, 1991, p. 28) and the market
value of the components of biodiversity. As Daniel Robinson recalls, the CBD is
a hard-fought compromise negotiated by biodiverse and mega-diverse countries,
i.e. the “Global South” (Robinson, 2014, p. 3). In the midst of the controversial
Uruguay round of negotiations held by the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (GATT) that were to result in an unprecedented extension of intellectual
property rights (IPRs),
10 the aim of the CBD was to ensure that access to genetic
materials from plants, animals, and microbes with potential value by researchers