Subject: [IKD] Indigenous Knowledge Initiative
Date: Mon, 08 Mar 1999 13:53:25 -0500
From: Rwoytek@worldbank.org
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
Dear Listmembers,
In the opening statement "Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property
Rights Issues" we stressed that IK has been underutilized in the
development process. This notion has been brought forward to the
development community at the Global Knowledge Conference 1997 (GKD97) in
Toronto. (URL:
http://www.globalknowledge.org/english/archives/session_minutes/pw1_18.html)
As a result of these discussions about a dozen development and
nongovernmental organizations and the World Bank launched the Indigenous
Knowledge for Development Initiative in 1998. (URL:
http://www.worldbank.org/html/afr/ik/index.htm)
The Partners of the Initiative are - among others - IDRC, ECA CISDA,
IDRC, ITU, UNESCO, UNDP, WHO, CIRAN, SANGONeT, WIPO, ILO - INDISCO
The Goal of this initiative picks up on the GKD97 themes:
Enable the development partners to learn more about the local practices
in client countries so as to better adapt technical and scientific
knowledge to local conditions, and to design activities to better serve
the country needs.
To this end the initiative intends to
Develop instruments for the capture, dissemination, and application of
indigenous knowledge
Facilitate the sharing of indigenous practices and innovations among and
across local communities through a South-to-South exchange
Advocate the application of indigenous knowledge in the development
process.
Establish partnerships
We also invite you to visit our website (for most of its content you do
not require the latest browsers!) and to give us feedback. As the
discussion evolves we would like to share with you the experiences we
have made so far, such as references to fascinating IK practices, about
the IK Centers in Africa, the cooperation with partners and our efforts
to integrate IK into the development process.
Please note that we are available for inquiries related to IK even
beyond the time perspective of this discussion list.
Reinhard Woytek
The World Bank
Practice Manager Indigenous Knowledge for Development Initiative
1818, H Street NW
Washington D.C. 20433
USA
Tel: 1-202-473 1641
Fax: 1-202-477 2977
Email: rwoytek@worldbank.org
Subject: [IKD] Re: Introduction to Week 5
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 18:44:37 -0500 (EST)
From: "M. Gordon Jones" <mgjones@cwix.com>
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
I think Lyla Mehta's contribution today makes an important distinction for
our IK discussion, although I disagree with her in a fundamental way about
it. Her distinction -- between IK being "embedded," on the one hand, or
being readily transferred (like "light"), on the other -- needs to be borne
in mind. Certainly much detailed IK is "embedded" (i.e., difficult to
transfer), requiring whole supporting institutions to exist or to be
modified in the receiving country. (Please note that, given our ongoing
discussion of indigenous knowledge in developing countries, I include
developed countries among "receiving" ones -- it is increasingly a two-way
street.)
In any case, I suspect the ready transferability issue -- while an important
IK distinction -- may be missing the point. As the WDR effectively presumes,
much IK is going to be "captured" and moved around the globe...whatever we
as observers may wish to prescribe. The less "embedded" it is, by its
nature, the more it will move where and when economic forces dictate.
As I have done on several occasions, I would like to cite the growth of the
incredibly dynamic Indian software-development industry also to illustrate
this point. In the software boom that has created hundreds of thousands of
jobs in south India, there was a huge transfer of IK (some of it under IPR
controls, but much in what amounts to the public domain).
This took place mostly, as I have suggested, because Indian educational
institutions (notably the Indian Institute of Technology in Bangalore) were
able to adapt themselves and their graduates to manipulate this cutting-edge
field in all its elements. They did so across the range of vocations --
from routine technical skills to the specialized financial and marketing
aspects, and all the way to organizing huge indigenous corporations to
compete successfully with international companies.
Precisely why they could do so for information technology (IT) and not for
many other industrial sectors (e.g., computer hardware), where Indian
productivity is notably lacking, is an interesting question. However, my
real point is that complexity is by no means a barrier to such IK transfers.
Hence, I propose that "embeddedness" is clearly not a matter of some body of
knowledge being too complicated (or culturally focussed) to find itself
quickly put to use on the other side of the planet from where it was
developed.
I suspect this reality -- which extends to other industrial sectors in other
countries (e.g., the auto sector in Brazil and elsewhere, though indigenous
enterpreneurs don't play the same role as in Indian IT) -- may not be
reflected in Lyla Mehta's otherwise-useful contribution.
M. Gordon Jones
Senior Associate
Global Business Access Ltd.
Washington, DC, USA
tel: (1-703) 465-9419
mgjones@cwix.com
Subject: [IKD] Re: Introduction to Week 5
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 18:56:21 -0500 (EST)
From: "Mark Gourley" <MGourley@acoa.ca>
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
Recent advances in biochemistry have made access to indigenous knowledge
unnecessary for the profit oriented organization as far as pharmacy is
concerned. The greater social value of this knowledge remains but those who
have ownership of it are easily convinced that even that value isn't
worth much.
It seems that protecting IK/IPRs requires the same kind of recognition that
other rights have been given in some countries. Land rights in this country
are still hotly debated even after centuries of treaty negotiations. We
have made aboriginal rights part of the constitution. This has given these
communities greater leverage when dealing with governments before the courts
even though these rights are not detailed in the law.
Protecting the economic value of IK/IPRs will require recognition in
international law in a similar manner. Probably the most effective at this
time is the WTO. The real value of this action would need to be questioned
as IPRs are, in almost every case, time limited. Greater protection of the
general availability of these rights would be served by shortening the
time limits.
Mark Gourley
mgourley@acoa.ca
Subject: [IKD] Indigenous knowledge and intellectual property rights
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 11:15:46 +0100
From: "Paul Mundy" <paulmundy@netcologne.de>
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
To: <ikd@jazz.worldbank.org>
Most of the discussion on intellectual property rights concentrates on
drugs, since they are among the few potential products of indigenous
knowledge that are patentable. Advocates of indigenous knowledge (myself
included) often seem to assume that rainforests, and indigenous healers'
heads, are brim-full of plants containing wonderful chemicals that can cure
all kinds of diseases. Unfortunately, this may not be the case.
According to a story in the 20 February issue of 'The Economist'
(http://www.economist.com), Shaman Pharmaceuticals Inc collaborated with
local healers to identify useful plants. But Shaman, and various other
ethnobotanical organisations, have failed to find many useful bioactive
compounds in the samples they collected. Plus, as Mark Gourley (9 Mar)
pointed out, modern biochemistry has come up with ways to screen hundreds of
thousands of plant samples, without having to rely on the healers and their
knowledge. (See http://www.shaman.com/press_releases/february11999.html for
Shaman's spin on this).
All this suggests that the intellectual property rights of those healers may
not be worth very much (in a commercial sense), even if they were to be
respected.
Still, there must be a mechanism to protect those rights, in the few cases
where local knowledge does result in a patentable, profitable drug or
chemical, especially since the profits from those few successes may be very
large.
Arguments about intellectual property rights tend to focus on multinational
drug and agrochemical companies. But there may also be a problem with local
industries. India, for example, has a lively industry producing Ayurvedic
and other medicines, many based on local knowledge. I, for one, regard this
as good: it provides valuable products and services, and generates income
and employment. But has the industry considered the local sources of its
technology, and sought ways of remunerating them? And do local laws require
it to do so?
Most research on drugs goes to solving disease problems in the developed
world, since that's where the profits are to be made. Diseases common in the
developing world tend to be neglected. Yet it's quite possible that the
forests (and local people's heads) contain the remedies for these neglected
diseases. It would be nice if a new property-rights regime would (a) provide
incentives for research on diseases in the developing world, and at the same
time (b) remunerate local people for the indigenous technologies they have
developed. But perhaps that is too much to ask?
Paul Mundy
development communication specialist
paulmundy@netcologne.de
http://www.netcologne.de/~nc-mundypa
tel +49-2202-932 921, fax +49-2202-932 922
Subject: [IKD] Who owns ik?
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 12:53:18 +0200
From: "EWET - Education With Enterprise Trust" <ewet@wn.apc.org>
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
To: <ikd@jazz.worldbank.org>
Dear Dialogue Partners
I followed the discussions regarding indigenous knowledge with great
interest. For me, these discussions brought the complexity of the
subject to the fore.
A short introduction: I am Arie Bouwer, employed by EWET - Education
With Enterprise Trust at http://www.ewet.org.za a NGO based in
Harrismith within the North-Eastern Free State Province of South Africa.
We enter into further complexity when talking about Intellectual
Property Rights (IPR) or ask the question on who owns knowledge. We
should attempt to answer this question with the humbleness that it
deserves in the face of the contributions that past generations made
towards the evolving body of knowledge that we have today. Even today
we have the privilege to be exposed to knowledge representing
contributions from innovative people from around the world, on a daily
basis.
The explosion of communication technology now makes it possible to
further integrate this body of knowledge for the betterment of all of
us. It is now possible for clusters of Indigenous Knowledge to surface
on the international platform, be acknowledged, and contribute to
further advancements. This resulting Global Community with its rich
diversity, is integrating not only knowledge but also cultural content.
We - individually, have the choice to accept (internalise) it or not.
Knowledge - once created, has a life of its own that is independent from
its "creator."
Excessive claims of ownership of knowledge represents a red flag to me
given the above. We most certainly do not experience a shortage of
knowledge but are rather flooded by it. Why do people still suffer from
the scarcity syndrome?!
The application of knowledge within the design of a production
methodology, product or service - something that money could be made
from, represents the challenge to fair treatment. (A further challenge
is to ensure that such applications of knowledge are not harmful.)
This represents the operational sphere of the innovator and
entrepreneur, of which we have to few as it is! Somebody who is able to
bring a new logic to existing knowledge that is available to all of us
(part of our inheritance), culminating in a product or service of which
we'll say "it is so simple, why did we not think of it?"
Social Entrepreneurs will be motivated by the impact that the innovation
will have on especially "poor" communities lives rather than by
financial gains. There are no other options available to the social
entrepreneur if the development of such an innovation had been made
possible through donor funding, except if income generation through the
selling of the innovation will contribute to the sustainability of the
NGO or nonprofit organisation.
A key challenge to Development Agencies who identify Indigenous
Knowledge applied within a commercially viable innovative product or
service is to facilitate for such a community to exploit the financial
gains that could be attained from the innovation. Such facilitation will
consist of assistance such as: setting-up a legal person or entity if
none are existing; the legal registration of the innovation in the name
of the very community where the innovation is present; assistance in
packaging and promoting the innovation; assistance in securing venture
capital - if required; access to markets, etc. The ownership of the
innovation as well as all activities relating to bringing the product or
service to the "market" must always remain with the beneficiaries.
To safeguard such a community from the theft of their innovation by a
commercial enterprise represents quite a challenge. We could possibly
learn from the "Sullivan Code" that multi-national companies could
subscribe to during the "apartheid" years in South Africa. Companies
that subscribed to this code in simple terms ensured that "apartheid"
were not practised in the work place - to the contrary, it provided for
speeding-up the career development of those people whom "apartheid"
discriminated against. Multi-national companies that operated in South
Africa who did not subscribe to this code, or who did not practice it
got penalised through actions such as bad publicity. Maybe the
formulation of a "Code of Ethics" relating to Intellectual Property
Rights with specific reference to Indigenous Knowledge could be drafted
with the involvement of all of the relevant stakeholders. Such
stakeholders should also consider "what will draw private sector
companies towards subscribing to the code?"
Regards from a warm and sunny South Africa
Arie Bouwer ewet@ewet.org.za
Subject: World Bank discussions on Indigenous Knowledge
Date: Tue, 09 Mar 1999 10:23:09 -0500
From: BIONET information services <bionet2@igc.org>
Organization: Biodiversity Action Network
To: biodiv-conv@igc.org
<<apologies for cross-postings>>
Subject: World Bank Forum on IK and Development
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 22:58:16 -0500 (EST)
From: Shane P Mulligan <smulliga@uoguelph.ca>
To: indknow <indknow@u.washington.edu>
The Bank has been hosting a knowledge and development discussion since
February 1. Week five focuses on IPRs and IK - thought some here might
want to join in. The Bank's introductory message is below.
More info is available at
http://www.worldbank.org/dev-forum/current-knowledge.html
or one can join the discussion by sending to
majordomo@jazz.worldbank.org
(no subject)
the message:
SUBSCRIBE IKD
Adios,
Shane P. Mulligan
P.O. Box 48-2398
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario
N1G 2W1, CANADA
smulliga@uoguelph.ca
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~smulliga
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1999 14:54:06 -0500
From: Cdahlman@worldbank.org
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
Subject: [IKD] Introduction to Week 5
Week 5: Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights Issues.
Indigenous knowledge (IK) is an important, yet underutilized resource in
the development process. Numerous IK practices have evolved, especially
in agriculture, health, environment, customary law and social
institutions in various cultures and environments. Communities in other
parts of the world could benefit from such practices if the latter are
exchanged and disseminated. But there is a risk that due to the advance
and rapid dissemination of Western scientific knowledge, indigenous
knowledge could be swamped or ignored.
There is also concern about a tendency of pharmaceutical or
agro-industrial multinationals to appropriate indigenous knowledge,
build upon it, and patent it without compensating the original owners of
that knowledge. Most IK does not meet conventional patenting
requirements: ownership by a legal entity, novelty, and originality, so
it is difficult to protect under existing conventions.
Some of the questions that could be addressed in this week's discussion
include:
What are examples of IK practices in the areas of education, health,
social institutions, environment?
How can IK be protected?
What positive examples are there of compensation by multinationals of
indigenous knowledge and how was that achieved?
Is developing a code of ethics a viable proposition, and is it likely to
work?
What role could local communities play in exchanging their know-how
across cultures and borders?
What role could the private sector, governments or donor organizations
play without compromising IPR of the communities?
At a broader level there is concern that the trend towards strengthening
of intellectual property rights (IPRs) could hurt developing countries
and the poor. This applies not only to agreements that have already
been reached but also to future issues that are constantly being brought
forward as science and technology open up new issues in areas such as
bioengineering and software development which are still not fully
covered by existing agreements and that can have also have some
secondary impacts. (Take for example Monsanto's development of hybrid
seeds that are designed to become sterile so that the plants cannot
reproduce and the additional concern of this sterilization feature could
accidentally spill over and make even some local varieties sterile.)
Some of the issues that could be addressed include:
What can be done to counterbalance some of these trends toward greater
privatization of knowledge that can negatively affect poorer developing
countries?
Where can stronger IPRs have positive impacts on less developed
countries?
How can the tension between these two be best addressed?
How can the negotiating capacity of developing countries be strengthened
in current and future negotiations on intellectual property rights?
Carl Dahlman
cdahlman@worldbank.org
Subject: [IKD] Knowledge as a Commodity
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 14:49:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Zane Ma Rhea <z.marhea@cshe.unimelb.edu.au>
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
Congratulations on getting this virtual discussion happening! While I
share, more with a smile than a frown, Patel's questioning of the
involvement of the World Bank, it is also unhelpful to ignore the huge
impact this organisation does make on the production, reproduction,
disemmination and legitimation of ideas.
I still think, having followed the various discussions, that it is crucial
to make a distinction between ideas/information, and knowledge. I talk of
ideas and information as being 'out there', the stuff that can be
transferred from one human to another. I talk about knowledge as an
outcome of a person taking an idea into their person and making it their
own, either by experience or by mental/emotional understanding. The
distinction is necessary in order to unpack the current discussions about
commodification. In previous work I have looked specifically at the
tranfer and exchange of academically-generated ideas across cultures,
bilaterally between Australia and Thailand and then more broadly between
the nations of the old British Empire. It is people who translate ideas
into knowledge.
In both studies it is possible to expose the 'Economy of Ideas'. If we
look at exchange theory and social exchange theories what emerges is that
post-World War 2, access to western ideas was constructed within a 'moral
economy' of the gift. The arguments are reasonably complicated but
activities such as undertaken by the Colombo Plan participants and the huge
United States scholarship programs operated firmly within the rhetoric of
the gift. This does not mean that the 'gift of knowledge' with its
powerful emotive symbolism was wanted by the recipient. Most indigenous
peoples saw it for what it was, a technique to soften the loss of
indigenous sovereignty and identity. This awareness was not sufficient to
halt the flow of ideas into colonised lands, nor to stop local elites from
using their access to such ideas as a way of consolidating their own bases
of power.
In more recent times there has been an uneven shift towards the
commodification of ideas. This commodification operates within a
'legalistic economy' where 'ideas' have to have an owner and the exchange
is bound by some sort of contractual arrangement. Quite often, what has
been the case in universities is that ideas, formerly free, are now being
packaged together in new ways. It is these 'knowledge packages' that are
the real subject of discussions about commodification. As others have
pointed out, communally developed knowledges are in all cases simply that.
They exist as a product of human activity and interaction. Like water and
land, most people find it hard to understand how anyone can 'own' them.
It appears to me that there are some problems with the ownership of ideas.
With most other exchanges, a thing passes from one person to another in
exchange for either another thing or money. The original owner of the
thing gives up right to the thing when it passes to the next person; the
thing is alienated from its original owner. For example, if I sell you my
table, and you give me money for it you now have the table and I have no
right to use it anymore.
The buying and selling of ideas operate in a very different way. When I
claim an idea as my own, and what I am really selling you is the right to
use it as well. I am not alienating my right to continue using it. In
fact, I could do it in two parts depending on how much you were willing to
pay: first you buy the right to use it; and second you buy the right to
change it for your own purposes.
And this is the sticking point, as I understand it, regarding Indigenous
knowledges. Rarely has Indigenous knowledge been exchanged fairly either
during the period of global colonisation or more recently as can be seen in
reports about unethical bio-prospecting contracts. And hardly ever
discussed is whether a place such as a university has the right to
'critically analyse', change and reinterpret Indigenous knowledges. These
are pressing questions no matter what 'economy of ideas' is operating.
Looking forward to future discussions!
Regards
Zane
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Zane Ma Rhea
Research Fellow
Centre for the Study of Higher Education
University of Melbourne
Parkville 3052 Victoria Australia
Phone: +61 3 93447577
Facsimile: +61 3 9344 7576
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [IKD] Re: reply to C.J. Patel
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 15:11:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Nanci Lee <resource@calmeadow.com>
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
Organization: Calmeadow
To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
I, for one, think that these types of questions and clarifications are
fully warranted. Perhaps they seem unpalatable or inappropriate.
However, issues of power, ownership, agendas, transparency and control
too often get lost in rhetoric.
Information is not accessible, available, decentralized. Many
organizations, intentionally or unintentially, concentrate information
and knowledge in the hands of few at the expense of many. Why this
happens and how we unravel it have to be central to these debates.
That is not to say that the World Bank and Panos are doing so in this
instance, but these questions are valid aspects of understanding how
knowledge is used and abused. That is, if we agree that knowledge is
power.
Nanci Lee
resource@calmeadow.com
Subject: [IKD] Opportunity, indigenous knowledge and intellectual property rights
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 18:20:36 -0500 (EST)
From: Reid Harvey <ceramics@AfricaOnline.Co.Ci>
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
Though I agree with much of what Paul Mundy said in his 9 March posting,
Indigenous knowledge and intellectual property rights, I disagree with
his assertion that:
> Most of the discussion on intellectual property rights concentrates on
> drugs, since they are among the few potential products of indigenous
> knowledge that are patentable.
To the contrary, I am tempted to say that the greatest number of
potential, patentable products are ceramic related. The fact is that
about 97% of the earth's crust is composed of ceramic materials. In
short, these comprise all materials that are neither organic nor
metallic, and the high temperature processes involved put ceramics at the
starting point of nearly all industry.
One clear example of indigenous ceramics is to be found in villages
throughout Africa, where potters, mostly women, hand build water
containers and other products. Often their water storage jars are
preferred to plastic or other alternatives because of a cooling effect
due to the little air that blows on the water that has seeped through the
porous ceramic. (N.B. This may involve an inadvertant ingeniousness,
nevertheless suggesting a completely new approach to self cooling
containers!) I am constantly struck by the possibilities for a great
number of potential products, considering the many locally available
materials.
In the field of ceramics what is primarily needed is the education that
would enable people to understand the use of their resources. Indigenous
ceramists could greatly expand on their rich traditions, some of which
have been lost due to the shocks of market forces.
Please understand, and excuse, my bias in this matter. I got involved
with ceramics precisely because the field is urgently needed and poorly
understood. It is not only developers who are unaware of the
possibilities offered. Ceramists themselves have not done a good job of
letting people know about the many sustainable opportunities.
Reid Harvey
Ceramiques d'Afrique
Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire
ceramics@AfricaOnline.Co.Ci
Subject: [IKD] Diversity, Indigenous Knowledge and Development
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 18:22:46 -0500 (EST)
From: Sabine Grund <Sabine_Grund@public.uni-hamburg.de>
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
I am a doctoral student in political science at the University of Hawaii
and German citizen, who found out about your dialogue through my NGO,
Society for International Development (SID) with headquarters in Rome.
The recent discussions have been of great interest to me. Therefore, CJ
Patel's remarks seem a bit off the mark.
What lurks through from Athena Vongalis's last piece about the
Australian aborigines and their inability to retain/defend their
understanding of land 'rights' against the new definition of the
dominant 'white culture', is a crucial insight into the asynchrony of
social systems existing parallel to each other in many places worldwide.
The awareness that we actively promote the destruction of that
'diversity in asynchrony' in much of the whole 'development' process, is
beginning to grow.
The encounter of cultures that the Age of Discovery, often more suitably
spelled as colonialism, introduced have proceeded as conflicts of
'cultures' in a wider sense. Yet many of those who experienced those
encounters as discoverers may have been unaware of the negative impact
they leave. That corresponds to the old folk wisdom: "The path to hell
is paved with good intentions".
What appears most important is to raise the awareness of existing
differences and that the acceptance that diversity usually is an
enriching experience, not one that needs to be levelled out. Each social
system has its peculiar historical origin and a respective speed at
which it can digest changes without breaking down. This does not
correspond well with Western notions of efficiency, which is far too
narrow a concept, as the ecological - and recent financial(!) -
desasters worldwide testify.
Therefore we may not want to just give the aborigines people the money
to defend their concept of land in the language that the majority
culture understands best, as Athena suggests. Rather we may have to
start a serious redefinition of our cultural values, more far-reaching
than the public in the North has begun to realize. The more people from
all cultures participate in that challenging process of redefinition,
the more inclusive and internationally valid the new cultural norms
might become.
Sabine E. Grund
Hamburg, 10 March 1999
Sabine_Grund@public.uni-hamburg.de
Subject: [IKD] Message from the Moderators
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 18:50:55 -0500
From: moderator1@worldbank.org
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
Dear IKD members:
Since there seems to be considerable interest in the issue of indigenous
knowledge, and since we had fallen a bit behind each week in introducing the
"new topic of the week", we have decided to continue the focus on indigenous
knowledge through the rest of this week and only introduce the next topic --
information overload -- next Monday. (The means that the IKD discussion will
now be extended to 9 weeks instead of 8.) Of course, messages on
previous topics are still welcome even after a new topic is introduced.
We look forward to your thoughts -- and particularly to concrete examples of
strategies for preserving, protecting and sharing indigenous knowledge -- in
the coming days.
Best regards,
The moderators
Subject: Re: [IKD] World Bank control
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 12:33:49 +0700
From: "Chris W. Green" <chrisg@rad.net.id>
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
I do not subscribe to the 'conspiracy theory' of C.J. Patel. But I am
worried that our discussions on development, which primarily concern the
third world, is somewhat dominated by voices from the developed world.
I have done a very quick survey of the 173 messages which I have saved
from the list (I think I deleted a few in the early days). By country of
origin, 65% come from the developed world. If I attempt to identify the
country of origin of the poster, this increases a little, to 67%
apparently from the 'West'.
Now I accept that many Westerners do have worthwhile experience and
knowledge of developing countries. But after over 30 years in Asia, I also
recognise that there is much that I will never experience and understand.
Thus I think we should be very cautious of drawing too many conclusions
from these discussions, unless there has been clear and valid input from
those on the receiving end of our 'development'.
But perhaps I am more worried by the fact that so few from the developing
world are participating. How can we hope to communicate if the means of
communication which most of us now view as primary is out of reach (for
whatever reason) to those with whom we must communicate? Earlier
discussion on language seemed to reach a sort of vague conclusion that
those who wanted to join in must learn English. This is demonstrably
unrealistic, at least for the current generation.
But is language the only barrier? I think not. There are also barriers of
culture, and of course technology/infrastructure. Since communication is
so crucial to information, knowledge and development, I do hope that
discussions over the remaining weeks will attempt to identify practical
solutions to these challenges.
I recognize that many in the developing world see the apparent 'Western'
dominance of this type of discussion as yet another example of what they
view as 'colonialism'. Thus I can sympathise with C.J. Patel's concerns. I
think we risk much by ignoring them.
Chris
----------------------------------
Chris W. Green (chrisg@rad.net.id)
Jakarta, Indonesia
Tel: +62-21 846-3029 Fax: +62-21 846-1247
Subject:
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 14:49:13 +0100 (MET)
From: Michel.Menou@wanadoo.fr
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
Identité Message:<4.0.1.19990311125037.00dfa1e0@pop.wanadoo.fr>
Identité Message:<4.0.1.19990311125037.00dfa1e0@pop.wanadoo.fr>
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Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 14:44:34 +0100
To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
From: "Michel J. Menou" <Michel.Menou@wanadoo.fr>
Subject: Re: [IKD] Indigenous knowledge and intellectual property rights
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At 11:15 09/03/99 +0100, Paul Mundy wrote:
> snip
>According to a story in the 20 February issue of 'The Economist'
>(http://www.economist.com), Shaman Pharmaceuticals Inc collaborated with
>local healers to identify useful plants. But Shaman, and various other
>ethnobotanical organisations, have failed to find many useful bioactive
>compounds in the samples they collected. Plus, as Mark Gourley (9 Mar)
>pointed out, modern biochemistry has come up with ways to screen hundreds
of
>thousands of plant samples, without having to rely on the healers and their
>knowledge. (See http://www.shaman.com/press_releases/february11999.html for
>Shaman's spin on this).
>
>All this suggests that the intellectual property rights of those healers
may
>not be worth very much (in a commercial sense), even if they were to be
>respected.
R: It would be surprising that:
a) industrial enterprises and traditional healers would have the same sense
and practice of active principles;
b) industrial enterprises recognize their debt to unorganized healers;
c) ethnobotanists would ever find plants with therapeutic properties
without being briefed by traditional healers; thus who is the "inventor" or
discoverer, and who has rights?
On the other hand the issue is no longer restricted to the healers'
knowledge but extends to the possibility for companies to patent the hard
properties of nature, based on some quite trivial extraction or genetic
transformation they have operated upon them.
Michel Menou
michel.menou@wanadoo.fr
Subject: Re: [IKD] Re: Indigenous knowledge and intellectual property
rights
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 19:42:12 -0500 (EST)
From: "Angela C. de Siqueira" <acs4085@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
I sure agree with Tom Abele that " The majority of the efforts to date from
both the corporate world and even from the development agencies is that
these peoples [indigenous] want to and must engage in the global
development". Why this occur? Tom explaineed part of the case. That there
is a greed from multinational corporations and elites to achieve more
control over land and natural resources. However, I would add that there is
a need- from the market (multinatioanal corporations/elites) to transform/
reduce everyone - earlier known as human beings or citizens- in
"consumers".
To achieve this is necessary to brake the less "commodificated world" in
which indigenous people live; thats is a world where, if they were allowed
to live, they would have a kind of self-sufficiency without money or the
need of most of products and services created by industrialized world and
advertised as "impossible" to live without them through propaganga by media,
multinational corporations and multilateral agencies projects. They only
show the good side of consumerism, hidding the bad side of dependence,
increase poverty, pollution, etc.
Think about indigenous people that could have free access to land, get
enough food and fresh water from the land, as well as from river and native
forest? Moreover, what they do not have and need, they could have through
exchange process. Some tribes were more used to land cultivation, while
other to hunting, and they exchange.
Nowadays, when there is a lot of unemployment, some people began to get
together forming alternative communities, creating a kind of "value of work"
for exchange and also collective forms of farming. Thus, the dependence from
external sources as well as from manufacturated and industrialized goods and
services was greatly reduced; not to say that they have more healthy food,
without so much pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers.
However this alternative that surely empower localities and citizens, can be
affected by decisions make in top level, including international ones. Most
land of indigenous people was and continues to be taken, to be transformed
in large crop plantations, wood extraction, mineral exploitation, plant
installation, cattle creation, etc.... Those people were pushed further in
deep or earlier more inacessible places. However, nowadays, it was
discovered that where they live, remains the great bio-diversity as well
great concentration of strategic minerals, such as uranium, cuprum, ferrum,
magnesium, etc, source of profits for spacial and telecommunication race,
biotechnological patentable products, etc.
Thus, more than ever indigenous people and those poor that remain in some
land, must be transformed in "consumers", be more dependent from the "cash
bond", that is, with few option to survive by themselves, and thus be
willing (or pressed?) to sell part of their land or the product of it, as
well as transfer or give their knowledge for bargain prices or nothing! Sure
the neem tree in India is a very good example, how they lost the free access
to the product, as well as how their collective knowledge was private
appropriated by multinational corporations.
Angela C. de Siqueira-acs4085@garnet.acns.fsu.edu
Subject: [IKD] Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 05:44:06 +0000 (GMT)
From: wgtrr.ocees@mansfield.oxford.ac.uk
Reply-To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
To: ikd@jazz.worldbank.org
My name is Graham Dutfield and I'm currently a PhD student at Oxford
University. I've been doing IPR and genetic resource related research for
a number of years and would like to share the following thoughts with
other list members.
It is frequently assumed that ownership and property rights,
including intellectual property rights, are alien concepts in indigenous
and traditional societies. Such communities and peoples, it is said, are
characterised by a strong sharing ethos with respect to biological
resources and biodiversity-related knowledge. In fact, the anthropological
literature reveals that such concepts - or at least close equivalents to
them - may well be no less common than the sharing ethos. Proprietary
systems do exist in many traditional societies, but it would be erroneous
to assume that there is a generic system of collective intellectual rights
which is common to them all. Being locally specific, these systems display
a far greater diversity than those that are available to protect the
valuable intangibles of industrial firms. (Patents and copyrights are by
comparison blunt, rather clumsy instruments.) This suggests that it may
not be correct to suppose that patents, copyrights, trade secrets and
trademarks are entirely alien concepts to native peoples and traditional
rural communities.
Even so, it is quite another matter to suggest that
IPRs, particularly patents, are suitable mechanisms to protect traditional
knowledge. A great deal of traditional knowledge cannot be traced to a
specific community or geographical area. Thus, no identifiable group of
people may exist in which rights to such knowledge can be vested. In those
cases where the sources of knowledge can be attributed to single
individuals or communities, or to kinship or gender-based groups, there
are practical obstacles which make patenting unfeasible. While TEK of this
kind may be patentable in theory, it is most unlikely that the potential
applicants could bear the cost of acquiring and then defending a patent.
Tremendous controversy has arisen because while the patent system is to
all intents and purposes unavailable for indigenous communities to use,
there have been numerous cases of inventions derived from TEK being
patented. This is why a lot of indigenous peoples' representatives condemn
the patent system as being predatory. Are they right to think so? On
balance I think they have a very good point.
But I do worry that some of those (usually non-indigenous) people
who condemn the corporate 'biopirates' weaken their position by failing to
build their case on the existence of traditional proprietary systems,
while assuming that all TEK is communally shared and traceable to no
entity more specific than the (usually anonymous) 'local community' or
'Third World farmers'. In effect, they seem to be saying that traditional
knowledge is, by its very nature, a part of the public domain. This surely
is just what the pharmaceutical and seed companies want to hear. If
traditional knowledge is not secret and is not even considered by the
holders themselves to be anybody's legal property, then it is reasonable
to assume that nobody's rights are being infringed by publishing this
knowledge or commercially exploiting it. These advocates of indigenous
rights are then forced to resort to moral arguments to claim that
traditional knowledge should enjoy a privileged legal status vis--vis
other public domain knowledge originating from non-traditional sources
such as public or private sector research programmes. This position is
quite difficult to sustain.
On the contrary, I would argue in favour of indigenous peoples' rights on
three grounds, that: (1) Not all TEK is in the public domain; (2)
Unconsented placement of knowledge into the public domain does
not in itself extinguish the legitimate entitlements of the holders and
may in fact violate them--Unless they have agreed to share such knowledge
and are fully aware of the legal implications of doing so, documenting
and/or disseminating their knowledge is surely morally wrong; and (3) TEK
holders should be compensated for the wider benefits of doing so. In other
words, with respect to collective traditional knowledge that has been in
the public domain for so long that no legitimate rights claimants exist,
it is still possible to argue that indigenous peoples should be
compensated as an incentive for maintaining their biodiversity-friendly
knowledge and resource management systems. This need not be justified on
moral grounds at all, since the industrial users of plant genetic
resources would benefit as would the biosphere and humankind. How to do
this in the practical sense is of course very difficult.
As I understand it, indigenous peoples see Western law as an
imposition which seems to cancel out their own custom based regulations.
This is reasonable. After all, if indigenous peoples in WTO member states
are required to accept the existence of patents that they are economically
prevented from availing themselves of, why shouldn't their own
knowledge-related regimes be respected by others? It is perhaps this
point, that one type of IPR system is being universalised and prioritised
to the exclusion, even the negation, of all others, that causes the most
legitimate disquiet among those who are unable to see how they themselves
can benefit from this system. Policy makers schooled in Western legal
systems are apt to suppose that the only IPRs that exist are the ones
referred to in TRIPS and the WIPO-administered conventions. On the
contrary, traditional societies often have very complex custom-based IPR
systems. Just as members of these societies can benefit from learning
about the western IPR tradition, it's about time that lawyers, policy
makers and many of those who claim authority to speak on behalf of
indigenous peoples and local communities, also learnt about how
traditional communities generate, use, manage and control their own
knowledge.
Graham Dutfield
wgtrr.oceed@mansfield.oxford.ac.uk
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