Protecting community cultural and biological resources
The protection of cultural and biological resources by indigenous and local communities who own them will come under the spotlight during a webinar hosted by the Indigenous Knowledge Systems unit of the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) on Thursday, 29 October.
Taking place under the theme, "Biocultural Community Protocols (BCPs) to Protect Communities' Cultural and Biological Resources", the webinar will outline BCPs as instruments that set out clear terms and conditions for the government, the private sector, researchers and others on how to engage communities on their local resources and knowledge.
For users such as scientists, scholars, collectors and the private sector, it is vital that the rules of engagement with communities, as the owners and providers of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, should be made clear from the outset.
The webinar will highlight the value and significance of BCPs, and most importantly encourage communities to participate in compiling their own protocols. As a legal empowerment tool, the process of developing a BCP empowers communities in respect of rights regarding land, resources and knowledge.
In the past, local and indigenous communities were exploited by outside users, who took advantage of oral practices within these communities to extract whatever they needed without adequate compensation or acknowledgement.
In many cases communities, not being aware of the risks, would give away their indigenous knowledge or resources without any written documents being in place.
The BCPs are embedded in the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization, which came into force in 2014. South Africa is a contracting party to the Nagoya Protocol.
The Protocol is the first legally binding international instrument to encourage states to respect the rights of indigenous communities. Specifically, Article 12 requires parties to consider indigenous communities' "customary laws, community protocols and procedures" with respect to indigenous knowledge associated with genetic resources.
In South Africa, the approach is embedded in a number of related policies that recognise the role of indigenous communities in biodiversity conservation and food production, and the value of availability and access to their resources. Most importantly, the Protection, Promotion, Development and Management of Indigenous Knowledge Act, 2019 presupposes in terms of the Nagoya Protocol that access to indigenous knowledge must be preceded by a BCP.
Among the speakers during the webinar will be former school principal Jeremy-Dao!goasoa van Wyk, Manager of the Potskerf Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage Research Centre, which conducts research on the Khoi cultural heritage of the southern Cape. Van Wyk is working on a BCP document for the Attaqua Khoi Community – a first for the DSI for Khoi communities in the country. A book about the cultural history of the Attaqua Khoi is one of his projects.
DETAILS OF THE EVENT:
Date: Thursday, 29 October 2020
Time: 10:00 – 11:00
Venue: Virtual
RSVP: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_w0a2EOHJSF2XAS-6ApqDcQ
Issued by the Department of Science and Innovation
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