Community Protocols and Biocultural Rights 25
Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice. In Chapter
5, Garrett Graddy-Lovelace addresses the contested sovereignties at work and at
odds in the colonial settler and neoliberalised context of the United States/Turtle
Island. Both the Atateken North American Regional Declaration on Biocultural Diversity and Recommended Actions and the TK and BC Labels initiative
are mobilised to expand the emancipatory possibilities for official recognition of
Indigenous knowledge as well as data and seed sovereignty, offering key insights
for those working to move from the US obstructionism to Turtle Island-led
decolonisation and indigenisation within the realm of agrobiodiversity governance and beyond. Giulia Sajeva concludes this first part in Chapter 6, where she
explores the pros and cons of claiming biocultural rights for IPLCs as separate
groups. While Indigenous peoples hold Indigenous rights, local communities are
still fighting to receive protection under international law. This difference places
them in dissimilar positions regarding the decision as to whether to frame their
claims as biocultural rights claims or not.
The second part of the book moves on to community protocols within the
ABS context, while taking a glimpse into the nature and role of community
protocols beyond issues of access to genetic resources and TK. In so doing, it
strives to investigate, through a thorough review of specific cases drawn from
field-based research and/or work with communities around the world, the
content and functions of BCPs/CPs. Comprehensive chapters also explore the
negotiation process and raise stimulating questions about the role of international brokers and the way multilateral lending agencies, donor institutions,
and conservation organisations can use BCPs/CPs as disciplinary tools for national and regional planning or to serve powerful institutional interests. In this
second part, Pía Marchegiani and Louisa Parks explore the case of the 2015
Kachi Yupi (Tracks in the Salt) community protocol produced by Kolla and
Atacama communities in the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc areas of northwest Argentina. The case suggests the need for favourable political
contextual conditions for community protocols to lead to formal legal change,
but also underlines that their potential for underpinning collective action goes
beyond this, i.e. by expanding the action repertoires of local communities and
strengthening them as collective actors. Chapter 8 outlines a participatory action research project involving communities in Vanuatu and Cook Islands. Miri
(Margaret) Raven and Daniel Robinson explore biopiracy and technological
innovations as drivers for the use of protocols to protect Indigenous knowledge
of genetic resources. They identify challenges in developing and implementing community protocols and caution against essentialising Indigenous peoples,
their knowledge, and cultural practices. In Chapter 9, Leslé Jansen and Rayna
Sutherland sketch the development, within a colonial and apartheid context,
of the Rooibos Biocultural protocol, a legal affirmation of San and Khoikhoi
Community’s rights that was not recognised in South African ABS legislation.
They show that a gap exists between what the BCP affirms and what their lived
Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice. In Chapter
5, Garrett Graddy-Lovelace addresses the contested sovereignties at work and at
odds in the colonial settler and neoliberalised context of the United States/Turtle
Island. Both the Atateken North American Regional Declaration on Biocultural Diversity and Recommended Actions and the TK and BC Labels initiative
are mobilised to expand the emancipatory possibilities for official recognition of
Indigenous knowledge as well as data and seed sovereignty, offering key insights
for those working to move from the US obstructionism to Turtle Island-led
decolonisation and indigenisation within the realm of agrobiodiversity governance and beyond. Giulia Sajeva concludes this first part in Chapter 6, where she
explores the pros and cons of claiming biocultural rights for IPLCs as separate
groups. While Indigenous peoples hold Indigenous rights, local communities are
still fighting to receive protection under international law. This difference places
them in dissimilar positions regarding the decision as to whether to frame their
claims as biocultural rights claims or not.
The second part of the book moves on to community protocols within the
ABS context, while taking a glimpse into the nature and role of community
protocols beyond issues of access to genetic resources and TK. In so doing, it
strives to investigate, through a thorough review of specific cases drawn from
field-based research and/or work with communities around the world, the
content and functions of BCPs/CPs. Comprehensive chapters also explore the
negotiation process and raise stimulating questions about the role of international brokers and the way multilateral lending agencies, donor institutions,
and conservation organisations can use BCPs/CPs as disciplinary tools for national and regional planning or to serve powerful institutional interests. In this
second part, Pía Marchegiani and Louisa Parks explore the case of the 2015
Kachi Yupi (Tracks in the Salt) community protocol produced by Kolla and
Atacama communities in the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc areas of northwest Argentina. The case suggests the need for favourable political
contextual conditions for community protocols to lead to formal legal change,
but also underlines that their potential for underpinning collective action goes
beyond this, i.e. by expanding the action repertoires of local communities and
strengthening them as collective actors. Chapter 8 outlines a participatory action research project involving communities in Vanuatu and Cook Islands. Miri
(Margaret) Raven and Daniel Robinson explore biopiracy and technological
innovations as drivers for the use of protocols to protect Indigenous knowledge
of genetic resources. They identify challenges in developing and implementing community protocols and caution against essentialising Indigenous peoples,
their knowledge, and cultural practices. In Chapter 9, Leslé Jansen and Rayna
Sutherland sketch the development, within a colonial and apartheid context,
of the Rooibos Biocultural protocol, a legal affirmation of San and Khoikhoi
Community’s rights that was not recognised in South African ABS legislation.
They show that a gap exists between what the BCP affirms and what their lived