TEK and Intellectual Property Rights

Question

At the end of our last discussion on TEK and the Global Market Economy, Darrell Posey wrote: "Interesting that with all the focus on TEK there is no discourse (even by the people who are responding to your questions) about intellectual, cultural and scientific property rights of communities. Little chance TEKers will do more than contribute to the rip-off if this is not only addressed by US, but integrated into everything from project conception, to methodology, to publication and application of results."

Following along these lines, the phrase is often cited "knowledge is power." Intellectual property rights have often been offered as a solution to this power struggle and the protection of rights, presuming "knowledge is property." Indigenous and small-scale subsistence communities are often seen as marginalized by the industrial, commercialized world. How do you suggest leveling the playing field of power and ensuring the rights of the people involved? In your work, what power issues arose and how did you address intellectual property rights?

Regards: Kathy, Jamie, Sue, and Emily

---

Responses

From: Gene Anderson

This is a difficult question. Morally, of course, indigenous people should have full rights to their knowledge--equivalent to copyright/patent rights for individuals. In practice, this comes up against real-world difficulties: the big multinational corporations have all the lawyers, and would cut the indigenous peoples' rights to pieces if there was a conflict. Also, the nations where the indigenous people dwell often want some of (or all of) the action, even though the governments of those nations are usually busy trying to exterminate the indigenous people (culturally if not physically). The third question is: when a particular bit of valuable TEK is esoteric, and confined to one group within the indigenous ethnic or cultural group, who do we compensate--the whole cultural group or the esoteric subgroup? We have to figure out some way to make sure that compensation actually goes to the people who actually deserve it. I suspect this will involve anthropologists etc. working very closely with the peoples in question, and will have to be resolved on a case-by-case basis. First, we probably need to establish it as a legal principle that people everywhere have rights to their traditional knowledge.

best--Gene Anderson

From: Alan White

Since the issue of intellectual property rights is so large and complicated, I prefer to simply give an example of how in my work in the Philippines, our project deals with the issue in relation to local communities which are in essence sharing their traditional ecological knowledge and practices. In our coastal and small island conservation projects over the years we have certainly come to know about some traditional practices and knowledge of fisher folk of people living in the remote locations. Some of these traditional practices are indeed discussed and analyzed together with the local community groups. Because the overall objectives of the projects I work on are to enhance conservation and management on coastal resources, we of course analyze the practices of local residents in relation to conservation and sustainability of use. A theme in our program is always to feed back any information, its analysis and results to the communities involved so they can make use of it in whatever form they wish. An example is a fish yield study which was conducted over an 18 month period in which up to 40 fishers shared all their catch records, fishing locations, weather observations and other information. This information was processed (partially with the local community and partially by researchers outside the community) and given back to the community on a monthly basis in graphic form so everyone could see what was going on in the fishery. Now 13 years after that study, this same community still records it fish catch and most importantly has one of the best conservation and catch improvement records in the Philippines.

The point is that intellectual property rights were never an issue perse and it is difficult to see how the traditions and knowledge of the said community have been jeoparized. Rather, I think they have been enhanced and empowered so that now they are not afraid to tell other fishers, not belonging to their area, to go away. And their pride in their own management regime is much stronger than in the time when the original fish yield study was being conducted.

This example, does not of course, begin to address the many other forms of infringement on intellectual and traditional rights of people!

From: Daniel Clément

My last experience regarding this question was the following. I was hired by Innu Nation to prepare a presentation on Aboriginal Knowledge at an Environmental Impact Assessment Panel's hearing held last October in Utshimassit, one of the two Innu communities of Labrador, Canada. The Panel has to evaluate a mine/mill project by VBNC (Voisey's Bay Nickel Company), a subsidiary of INCO who is claiming the largest supply of nickel in the world, between two Aboriginal communities on the Coast of Labrador (Nain, an Inuit community and Utshimassit, the Innu community). In this context, the project of collecting Innu knowledge was financed by VBNC. Innu Nation and VBNC signed an agreement with Intellectual Property Rights being kept by Innu Nation. I myself signed a contract with Innu Nation where it is specifically stated that all the collected data remains the property of Innu. I can only use the raw data with special permission from the Nation. The data includes medical, technical, ritual,... uses of plants, animals and rocks; lexicographic data; vernacular taxonomies; place names; historical data; etc. It was collected by an Innu Nation Team and I acted as Senior researcher responsible for the preparation of the presentation. Methodological questions were addressed by the whole team and problems solved by Innu people on the team.

I think this way of proceeding is quite clear for all parties and much to the advantage of the Indigenous People concerned except for one issue, the research funds. They were quite modest besides being ambiguous in nature because of their origin (VBNC). But this is how Environmental Impact Assessments work in Canada and Indigenous People are not independent for funding.

Daniel Clement