The Kukula Traditional Health Practitioners Association Explore Opportunities with Skukuza Indigenous Plant Nursery, Kruger National Park, South Africa

KTHPA  SANParks staff at Nkuhlu
Enclosure (Photo:  Cath Traynor)

KTHPA discussing medicinal plants with
SANParks staff (Photo: Cath Traynor)



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Kukula Traditional Health Practitioners Association (KTHPA) of Bushbuckridge, South Africa visited Kruger National Park’s Skukuza Indigenous Plant Nursery earlier this year. The Kukula were invited by Michele Hofmeyr, the Manager of the nursery after she attended the Kukula’s Biocultural Community Protocol (BCP) Revision Workshop. The aim of the visit was to explore areas of mutual interest: South African National Parks (SANParks) is developing a list of medicinal plant species of interest to communities in the bufferzone areas of the park, and KTHPA are interested to access propagules of medicinal plant species that only occur within the park.

 

Members of the Kukula spent an afternoon in the nursery, looking at the existing stock of medicinal plant species, learning how the different species are propagated, and discussing which species may be suitable for KTHPA to propagate themselves. The following day, Nursery staff joined the Kukula on a walk in the Nkuhlu Enclosure, a 139 ha fenced area consisting of dense woody vegetation thickets along the Sabie and Crocodile Rivers. The KTHPA members identified species of particular interest, and SANParks staff collected specimens so that scientific names could be ascertained.

 

The nursery kindly donated seedlings and plants to the Kukula, including saplings of the pepper-bark tree (Warburgia salutaris), this is a highly sought-after medicinal plant, which is critically endangered, and one that the nursery is cultivating on a large-scale.



KTHPA at SANParks Skukuza
Indigenous Plant Nursery
(Photo: Cath Traynor)

Michele Hofmeyer, SANParks
Skukuza Indigenous Plants Nursery 
Manager sharing her knowledge regards
successfully germinating different
plant species (Photo: Cath Traynor)

Natural Justice, together with partners K2C and Wits Rural Facility are supporting the Kukula Traditional Health Practitioners to revise their BCP, and to utilize it to constructively engage with external stakeholders such as SANParks. Running throughout South Africa’s legislation on conservation is the balance between conservation on the one hand and sustainable use for the benefit of communities on the other. Through collaborations such as these KTHPA hope to both conserve biodiversity and to advance the health of their communities through their traditional healing practices.

Stewarding the Earth: Rethinking Property and the Emergence of Biocultural Rights. A New Book by Kabir Bavikatte

The recent Oxford University Press, Stewarding the Earth: Rethinking Property and the Emergence of Biocultural Rights seeks to theorize some of the most significant experiences of Natural Justice since its inception. Written by Kabir Bavikatte, a co-founder and former member of Natural Justice, the book makes a strong case for the right to stewardship of Nature through biocultural rights. 

Weaving a fascinating tapestry of law, economics, anthropology and philosophy, Kabir maps and argues for biocultural rights of communities through compelling examples of environmental agreements, legislation, judicial decisions, and community practices. While most books on environmental jurisprudence tend to be expensive and dense tomes directed at academia, Kabir has made good on his promise of writing a low-cost, engaging book that theorizes the work of Natural Justice and its partners. Informative and stimulating, Stewarding the Earth is bound to have a profound impact on the environmental lawscape.

ICCA Consortium and Natural Justice at WILD 10

From the 8th to the 10th of October the ICCA Consortium representatives and Natural Justice attended the 10th World Wilderness Congress, Wild 10, in Salamanca, Spain. Approximately 1500 people, including indigenous peoples and local communities, conservation organizations, government and business representatives attended the conference during which experiences were shared on conservation measures across the globe. An Indigenous and Community Lands and Seas Forum was also held during which members of the ICCA Consortium spoke of their territories and resources and the challenges faced to protect and conserve them. 

Gino Cocchiaro (Natural Justice) was invited to speak about community protocols and highlight examples as to how such protocols are being used to foster dialogue and agreement between communities and protected area authorities. 

Major CBD Publication on ICCAs

The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)  has released a major new publication entitled “Recognising and Supporting Territories and Areas Conserved by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Global Overview and National Case Studies.” The publication was coordinated and edited by Ashish Kothari of Kalpavriksh with Colleen Corrigan, Aurélie Neumann, and Natural Justice’s Harry Jonas and Holly Shrumm. Harry Jonas, Holly Shrumm and Natural Justice Fellow Eli Makaegon were lead authors for Chapters 3, 4 and 6 of the report on international recognition and support of ICCAs, national level legal recognition and support, and recommendations for recognizing and supporting ICCAs. 

From the Executive Summary, “there is increasing recognition that the territories and areas governed or managed by indigenous peoples and local communities contain significant levels of biodiversity (and related cultural diversity), and that the knowledge and practices of these people have contributed to conservation of ecosystem, species, and genetic diversity. This publication responds to the need for greater understanding on how to recognize and support the phenomenon of Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ Conserved Territories and Areas (ICCAs). Such a need has been voiced by those who work on conservation, indigenous and human rights, local communities, natural resource-based livelihoods and cultural issues. It also arises from the commitment of countries to recognize and support ICCAs, and the peoples and communities that govern them, as part of international conservation and human rights agreements.” 

The publication incorporates past studies on ICCAs and 19 national case studies commissioned as part of a project on ICCA Recognition and Support, undertaken by the ICCA Consortium, coordinated by Kalpavriksh. It also includes key findings from reviews of international and national ICCA legislation coordinated by Natural Justice. 

Download the full publication here. Reviews of national and international ICCA legislation can be found here. 

Presentation at National University of Juridical Sciences

On 24 February, 2013, Kabir Bavikatte (Natural Justice) was invited by the Nature Committee of the National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata to speak to students on Biocultural Rights and Access and Benefit Sharing. Thereafter Kabir co-chaired a mock session on negotiating the Nagoya Protocol with law students from law schools across India.

Presentation to GEF SGP - Kenya

Natural Justice was invited to present at a meeting of the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP) Kenyan National Steering Committee on 9 November, 2012. The National Steering Committee includes representatives from  governmental, intergovernmental and civil society bodies such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Kenyan Ministry of Environment, Kenya Wildlife Service, Kenya Forest Service, WWF and Oxfam. It provides support to community based environment projects in the country with the aim of environmental conservation and sustainable livelihood development. Gino Cocchiaro presented on the work of Natural Justice, focusing on biocultural rights and biocultural community protocols as mechanisms to support the wellbeing of communities, conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

E-Module on REDD+ for Communities

Human activities are consuming huge amounts of fossil fuels and raw materials that are creating massive amounts of persistent gases that are dramatically changing weather patterns in unpredictable ways. Deforestation contributes an estimated 18-25% of carbon emissions. The idea behind the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) programme is to generate funds to reduce emissions through forest conservation in order to slow the onset of climate change. Since most of the world’s remaining forests are in the ‘developing world’ and most of the world’s emissions are from the ‘developed world’, the majority of funding for REDD+ will be directed from the latter to the former. As REDD+ is implemented, communities will be significantly impacted, often negatively. 

In this context, Natural Justice has prepared a draft e-module on REDD+ for communities. The module seeks to prepare communities, especially communities developing biocultural community protocols, to engage proactively with the international framework of REDD+. It briefly describes the rationale behind and plans for REDD+. It then looks at the key issues that have emerged around REDD+, focusing especially on the concerns with its current status and the safeguards that are being developed to attempt to protect community rights. It closes by looking at the current forms in which REDD+ is being implemented. 

The full e-module can be downloaded here. Other e-modules drafted by Natural Justice can be accessed here. These modules supplement ‘BCPs: A Toolkit for Community Facilitators’, which can be viewed here. The documents are not final and any comments can be directed to Holly Shrumm (holly (at) naturaljustice.org) and Harry Jonas (harry (at) naturaljustice.org).

State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples

With the threats faced by indigenous peoples and minorities increasing, Minority Rights Group International (MRG) has released its annual “State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples Report.” The report finds that “the scale and severity of the threats to indigenous peoples and minorities have reached new proportions, due to an unprecedented demand for the world’s remaining resources.” 

The report “provides concrete evidence of how the generation of vast revenues from logging and dams, oil and mineral extraction, coastal tourism, fish farming, conservation parks and large-scale agriculture, is often at the expense of the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.” According to the report, “despite a wave of new commitments from governments and corporations, the revenues from natural resource development continue to flow out of the regions where poor communities live, while the harms stay behind.” 

The report can be downloaded here. The global press release can be found here. MRG can be found on Facebook (here) and Twitter (here).

E-Module on TK and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity

Natural Justice has developed a number of draft e-learning modules to support communities developing biocultural community protocols (BCPs) to increase their understanding of key international legal frameworks, concepts and programmes. These modules supplement ‘BCPs: A Toolkit for Community Facilitators’. 

The second module in this series examines international law’s recognition of and protections for communities’ traditional knowledge and sustainable uses of biodiversity. Traditional knowledge, innovations, and practices (often referred together as ‘traditional knowledge’) are developed and nurtured over many generations. They are underpinned by spiritual beliefs and customary laws that reinforce communities’ identities, cultures, and ways of life. They enable communities to live within the natural limits of specific territories, areas, or resources upon which they depend for livelihoods and wellbeing. They are also integral to Indigenous languages, spiritual beliefs, and culturally appropriate education, health, and nutrition. 

There are several international agreements that address traditional knowledge and customary sustainable uses of biodiversity. The focus of this module is the most prominent agreement, the Convention on Biological Diversity. From the outset of the Convention, the Preamble recognizes “the close and traditional dependence” of many Indigenous peoples and local communities on biological resources. Thereafter, two Articles in particular grant important rights to Indigenous peoples and local communities: Article 8(j) on traditional knowledge, innovations and practices; and Article 10(c) on customary sustainable uses of biodiversity. 

The module can be downloaded here. The BCP Toolkit can be downloaded here. The documents are not final and any comments can be directed to Holly Shrumm (holly (at) naturaljustice.org) and Harry Jonas (harry (at) naturaljustice.org).

Kinabalu Project Planning Meeting

On 13 January, Harry Jonas and Holly Shrumm (Natural Justice) joined partners Borneo Conservancy Initiative (BC Initiative) and Sabah Biodiversity Centre (SaBC) for a full-day planning meeting about the Kinabalu Biocultural Law Project, which is set to begin local work soon. Dr. Jamili Nais (Sabah Parks) and Dr. Agnes Lee Agama also joined the meeting for specific topics.

Presentations and topics discussed throughout the day included: Projek Etnobotani Kinabalu; international framework for access and benefit sharing (ABS); Sabah's framework for ABS; project aims, activities, outputs, and outcomes; proposed workplan for the first year; and linkages with other related initiatives around Mount Kinabalu (including a proposed wildlife corridor, Biosphere Reserve, and collaborations between Kinabalu Park and surrounding communities). Natural Justice thanks all of the participants as well as SaBC for hosting the meeting.

Kinabalu Biocultural Law Project

On the 20th of December, Natural Justice and Borneo Conservancy entered into a Memorandum of Understanding relating to the Kinabalu Biocultural Law Project. The project will be undertaken in partnership with the Sabah Biodiversity Centre and will explore with a number of Dusun communities living around Kinabalu Park (Sabah, Malaysia) innovative ways of engaging with laws towards protecting their biological and cultural diversity. The project will build on the work undertaken by partners to the Projek Etnobotani Kinabalu (Kinabalu Ethnobotany Project) and a recent study on traditional ecological knowledge and Indigenous peoples' and community conserved areas (some outputs of which are available online). The project will also benefit from input from Dr. Agnes Lee Agama (South East Asia Coordinator of the Global Diversity Foundation) acting in her personal capacity. Natural Justice looks forward to working with the communities and team on the project.

L-R in the photo: Dorothy Lim, Lanash Thanda, Alice Mathew, and Daniel Doughty (Borneo Conservancy); Holly Shrumm and Harry Jonas (Natural Justice).

Recap: Workshop on Biocultural Rights and Community Protocols

A workshop on Biocultural Rights and Biocultural Community protocols was held in Namibia from 18-19 August. The workshop was organized by the San Support Organizations (a forum for all community-based and non-governmental organizations working with the San communities) and the Nyae Nyae Development Foundation, with support from the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA).

Natural Justice facilitated sessions on the biocultural rights of Indigenous communities in Namibia to their to material and cultural resources through the development of biocultural community protocols. These presentations, role-plays, and discussions invited community representatives and supporting CBOs and NGOs to consider how they could utilize biocultural rights in their specific contexts. The Integrated Rural Developmentand Nature Conservation (IDRNC) and the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC) also highlighted the strategies of the Khwe Community from the Bwabwata National Park and the Hai//om from Etosha National Park in asserting their biocultural rights over their resources and knowledge and the continued conservation of their lands.

Workshop on Biocultural Rights and Community Protocols

From 18-19 August, Natural Justice will be facilitating a workshop on biocultural rights and biocultural community protocols for Namibian San organizations in Windhoek. The workshop is being organized by the San Support Organizations and the Nyae Nyae Development Foundation of Namibia. The objective of the workshop is to build the capacity of San Support Organizations and San communities to identify and strategically assert their biocultural rights to their material and cultural resources through the development of biocultural community protocols. The workshop will include sharing of experiences from representatives of the Bushbuckridge Traditional Health Practitioners Association, the Khwe from Bwabwata National Park, and the Hai//om from Etosha National Park. The workshop will be supported by the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA).