Recognizing the Rights of Communities and Knowledge Holders in Climate Change Adaptation – UNFCCC COP21 Side Event

Ms. Swiderska, Dr. Reid, Mr. Argumendo, Dr. Song, Dr. Castro, Dr. Traynor & Mr. Le Fleur
(Photo courtesy of Matt Wright/IIED)

During the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (30^th November – 12^th December), the Adaptation Committee released its 2015 Overview Report “Enhancing Coherent Action on Adaptation 2012-2015”, the publication provides information on adaptation to Parties and the broader adaptation community. Within the report the Adaptation Committee recommends that Parties underline the importance of indigenous and traditional knowledge (I&TK), and encourage their integration into National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). They suggest, one way that this integration can be supported is through enhancing the accountability and enforcing implementation of existing laws, rules and procedures dealing with I&TK and practices thus ensuring recognition of the rights of communities and holders of I&TK and practices throughout the adaptation process.

Natural Justice’s Dr. Cath Traynor’s presentation entitled “Indigenous Knowledge in Climate Change Adaptation: Recognition of the Rights of Communities and Knowledge Holders” spoke directly to this issue. Dr. Traynor was part of a panel on the NJ, GTA, IIED co-hosted Side Event “Supporting Poor, Vulnerable, and Indigenous Communities”, 7^th December, 2015. Dr. Traynor introduced preliminary findings of the “Empowering Indigenous Peoples and Knowledge Systems Related to Climate Change Adaptation and Intellectual Property Rights” OCSDNet project, these included reflections on the university research ethics procedures, which although they seek to ensure the protection of and consent from human subjects, at the same time secures power relations, between ‘expert’ researchers who are seen to produce knowledge and vulnerable subjects who produce mere data. Efforts towards more open and collaborative research needs to understand these complex tensions that shape, and are shaped by, knowledge production and engage critically in the ethics procedures themselves. To ensure that community rights are recognized in adaptation, community-researcher contracts have also been developed, their purpose is to ensure that community intellectual property in adaptation is controlled and protected in accordance with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and South African Policies and Laws. Mr. Reino Le Fleur, Indigenous Griqua youth representative and Community Co-Researcher on the OCSDNet project, then shared his experiences and his plans for connecting youth with I&TK of their elders, a linkage which in some communities in South Africa is being lost due to the historical dispossession of lands, and the negative impacts of colonisation, apartheid and globalisation upon traditional livelihoods.

During the Side Event, Ms. Krystyna Swiderska (IIED), Mr. Alejandro Argumento (ANDES) and Dr. Yinching Song (Centre for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Science) discussed the importance of biocultural heritage in adaptation practices and highlighted 5 key actions and the benefits of farmer to farmer seed networks. 

Dr. Carlos Potiatra Castro (University of Brazillia/GTA) then shared experiences from the development of the Bailique Community Protocol, Brazil. The process entailed integrating customary norms and internal governance structures into the protocol, consideration of national and international legislation as it applies to the communities and public policies that they have a right to access. To date, the process has resulted in land regularisation, and empowerment of the communities to negotiate with external actors. The community protocol approach is highly relevant to landscape scale mitigation and adaptation programmes and projects and could also contribute to REDD+ as a recent Policy Brief illustrates (search for “BCPs” here).

Dr. Hannah Reid (IIED) then summarised a study that aimed to quantify the funding for local adaptation activities against ten principles intended to guide good ‘quality’ funding allocations. Projects scored well in terms of effectiveness, flexibility and sustainability but poorly on transparency, accountability and urgency.

The session drew to a close with questions from the audience, which included asking how a community is defined, and the pro’s and con’s of an I&TK database, and a wrap-up from Mr. Delfin Ganapin (UNDP-GEF Small Grants Programme). Presentations and related materials can be found on the UNFCCC Side Events webpage, search for the “Natural Justice” adaptation session held at 15:00-16:30 hrs, Monday 07 December, 2015. 

Biocultural Community Protocols and the Future of Conservation

On 17 July 2014, the Namibian, a local daily in Namibia, reported a rather momentous event: the development of a biocultural community protocol of the Kxoe community of the Bwabwata National Park — the first of its kind in Namibia.

Around 6,700 Kxoe people reside in Bwabwata National Park in Namibia’s West, and in the Kavango and Zambezi regions; they survive mainly as hunters and gatherers. The Kxoe developed the protocol with assistance from the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism and Natural Justice. The protocol sought to articulate the Kxoe’s values, priorities, and procedures for decision-making around their resources, as well as set out their rights and responsibilities under customary, state, and international law. The protocol would be used as the basis for engaging with external actors such as the government, companies, academics, and non-governmental organizations, who seek access to the Kxoe lands, and traditional and genetic resources for research and development, commercialization, conservation, and other legal and policy frameworks. Read the full blog post by Kabir Sanjay Bavikatte here.

Terralingua Publishes Biocultural Diversiy Toolkit

With a view to making the concept and some of the applications of biocultural diversity more widely known to researchers, professionals, policy makers, and the general public, Terralingua has published the Biocultural Diversity Toolkit.

Since 1996, Terralingua has spearheaded research and applied work that have helped forge an integrated biocultural perspective on nature conservation and sustainable development: an approach that respects diversity in both nature and culture, and that recognizes the inextricable link between humans and the natural environment as vital to achieving human development in balance with nature. There are many hopeful signs of growing awareness of the critical importance of biocultural diversity for the vitality and resilience of our planet. Yet, stemming the continued erosion of life systems in both nature and culture requires a decisive effort to communicate, educate, share insights, and promote a new vision for human futures.

Natural Justice Engagement in Mutare, Zimbabwe

Natural Justice worked with members of the Marange and Arda Transsau communities from 7-8 July in Manicaland in Zimbabwe, to support the development of the community's biocultural community protocol. All were involved in peer-to-peer learning activities designed to support the collection of materials for the community's biocultural community protocol. Activities included institution and resource mapping, mapping of community and other development activities within the communities, now and historically, development of historical timelines and role play activities.

The two day workshop was an incredibly rich opportunity to engage in endogenous development and participatory action research methodologies by Natural Justice and community members alike.

Call for Applications for Volunteer Internship: Natural Justice, India

Natural Justice: Lawyers for Communities and the Environment is a non-profit organization registered in South Africa, with offices in India, Malaysia and New York City. We assist communities to engage with legal frameworks to secure environmental and social justice. Our mission is to facilitate full and effective participation of Indigenous peoples and local communities in the development and implementation of laws and policies relating to conservation and customary uses of biodiversity and the protection of associated cultural heritage. Natural Justice works at the local, regional, national, and international levels with a range of partners.

Natural Justice (India) is inviting applications for volunteer interns to support our work around extractive industries in Orissa. This project is part of an inter-regional action-research project with case studies in five countries across the world, including India. The project explores the development and use of bio-cultural community protocols as a tool to facilitate conflict transformation by enabling communities to engage constructively with extractive industries and other external actors, to secure their rights and interests.

Duration: We would prefer the internship to begin on 10th June 2014, for a minimum period of 3 weeks, but the position may be open beyond that.

Location: Please note that the intern will be required to work out of Bangalore, India for the entire duration of internship.

Quito II: Second Dialogue Held in Ecuador to Discuss Methods for Financing Biological Diversity

Braulio Souza (centre), Executive Secretary
to the CBD, gives closing remarks at the meeting.

There is no question that biological diversity is being lost at an unsustainable rate and that this trend needs to be halted through a variety of different approaches. Important questions exist, however, about how to pay for those approaches. To help answer those questions, several governments, as well as the European Commission and the CBD Secretariat, convened a meeting in Ecuador called the Second Dialogue Seminar on Scaling up Finance for Biodiversity from 9-12 April 2014 to discuss issues regarding financing biological diversity.

Representatives from governments, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), NGOs and other organizations presented on a broad range of topics in plenary sessions, including: CBD and UN efforts in the area of financing (the High Level Panel on Resourcing and the Biodiversity Finance Initiative); the Global Environmental Facility's strategy for the next four years; and community monitoring of biodiversity. Jael Eli Makagon from Natural Justice presented on community protocols as a way of ensuring the full participation of Indigenous peoples and local communities in biodiversity financing. Several small group sessions were held, during which specific questions were asked by the organizers regarding many different topics, including perverse subsidies, taxation issues, and the Sustainable Development Goals.

ABS and BCP Workshop in Zeerust, South Africa

A workshop on the international legislative framework and the South African domestic laws relating to access and benefit sharing was held in Zeerust, South Africa on 9 and 10 April 2013. This workshop was the second of three workshops in a pilot project funded by the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Institute, and organised by the Indigenous Knowledge Systems unit of the Medical Research Council of South Africa. Laureen Manuel and Stephanie Booker of Natural Justice conducted the workshop, which included presentations and training on biocultural community protocols (BCPs).

The participants of the workshop included committee members and youth from the Mokgola community in Zeerust. The topics covered the international and domestic law on Access and Benefit Sharing, specifically the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol, and the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act and Bioprospecting, Access and Benefit Sharing Regulations of South Africa.

The presentation and group discussions on BCPs revealed some community tensions which ended in concurrence that there needs to be more discussion within the community to reach agreement on certain issues.

Major New Partnership - National Khoi-San Council and Natural Justice

NKC Chairperson Cecil Le Fleur
signing the MoU

Natural Justice has established a ground-breaking relationship with South Africa’s National Khoi-San Council (NKC), the government-convened body of representatives from Khoe and San communities of South Africa. Natural Justice’s Lesle Jansen, Laureen Manuel and Johan Lorenzen presented Natural Justice’s proposed partnership with the NKC, which the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA) has agreed to support, to the Council from 6-7 November, 2012, in Bloemfontein, South Africa. A memorandum of understanding committing both parties to the completion of the proposed activities was signed between Natural Justice and NKC on November 7, 2012.  

Natural Justice will support NKC to achieve three objectives through the partnership:

• Support the Council in having meaningful consultations amongst Council communities, members and with government;

• Engage in legal training for the NKC around the National Traditional Affairs Bill and its continued negotiations;

• Consult with Khoe and San communities to draft a self-governance model based on the human rights issues set out in the UN Mission report recommendations of 2005. 

The initial partnership is for 12 months but it is hoped that this will be the foundation of an enduring relationship. 

GDF-Natural Justice Darwin Workshop

As part of Natural Justice's emerging partnership with the Global Diversity Foundation (GDF), Holly Shrumm and Harry Jonas provided input to a training workshop and planning meeting from 10-12 March, attended by 34 participants from the GDF and Sabah Parks, and held at Sabah Parks' Crocker Range Park headquarters, Keningau, Sabah. The workshop's aims were to provide participants further understanding of the relevance of international law to local communities' lives, to further discuss the application of bio-cultural community protocols to the communities with which GDF is working, and to plan future work. Specifically, the meeting covered:
- International laws relating to communities' management of natural resources;
- Bio-cultural community protocols;
- Field updates from community researchers about the workshops in Buayan and Bundu Tuhan (see earlier blog posts), the wildlife corridor and the anti-dam campaign;
- Group discussions about key issues affecting local communities, what information communities might want to convey to other stakeholders, and in which format (including written word, GIS maps, video and photo); and
- Group discussions to plan practical ways forwards.
The meeting concluded with GDF's community researchers agreeing a programme of community meetings in the Ulu Papar valley and Bundu Tuhan to obtain further information about relevant factors (such as the extent of community managed forests, location of cultural sites and land management practices) towards the development of community protocols calling for the recognition of their role in managing indigenous and community conserved areas (ICCAs). Harry and Holly thank Agnes, Adam, James and the GDF community researchers for hosting them for the past 3 weeks - and are already looking forward to the return.

Reviewing Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas in Malaysia

The Global Diversity Foundation (GDF) is managing a project in Sabah entitled: Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Sabah, a Consolidation of Issues and Experiences in Relation to Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Resource Use. Component 2 of the project aims to compile a state-wide review of indigenous and community conserved areas (ICCAs) in Sabah, emphasising the identification of existing and potential ICCAs, and documenting communities’ experiences in establishing and managing ICCAs. One of the specific aims is to promote the traditional ecological knowledge and customary practices that are used or can be applied in the management of ICCAs, and inform the access and benefit sharing processes in the context of ICCAs and protected areas in general. In that context, Holly Shrumm and Harry Jonas met with leaders of the Bundu Tuhan community (who live adjacent to the Kinabalu National Park - pictured) to discuss their twin concerns about the possible designation of their community forests as a Forest Reseve, and their work towards the recognition of their land as an ICCA. The meeting addressed bio-cultural community protocols, the community's development plan and the proposal to include the community's land in a wildlife corridor. Natural Justice was subsequently invited to provide further input to the ICCA work, specifically to explore with GDF how the communities with which GDF is working can provide evidence to support the designation of their villages and/or surrounding areas as ICCAs.

Bio-cultural Community Protocols in Liberia

Kabir Bavikatte met with Jonathan Davies, the CBD Focal Point of Liberia and Dr. Andreas Drews, Co-ordinator of the ABS Initiative for Africa to discuss the development of sui generis systems for the protection of traditional knowledge in Liberia, through the development of community protocols and community led documentation of their traditional knowledge. This discussion took place in the context of the draft Liberian ABS law which also seeks to protect the rights of the holders of traditional knowledge. The meeting agreed that the way forward would be for Natural Justice to facilitate the development of two biocultural protocols with 2 ethnic communities in Liberia in partnership with a local organization. Based on these protocols, a national meeting would be organized with the leaders of the different ethnic groups represented by the National Traditional Council (the body of leaders of the different ethnic groups in Liberia) to present the protocols and to strategize on the way forward to secure the rights of Liberian communities to their traditional knowledge and resources. This would be the first stage of a three year project aimed at securing the rights of the holders of traditional knowledge in Liberia. Natural Justice has been asked to submit a budget for these activities that it will undertake on behalf of the Liberian government.

ABS Steering Committee Meeting

In the 2nd week of December 2009, Kabir Bavikatte attended the ABS Initiative for Africa's Steering Committee Meeting in Cairo where he participated in reflecting on the ABS Initiative's activities in 2009 and planning for its activities in 2010. In Cairo he also participated in the Pan African ABS Workshop, where he conducted a session for the participants on biocultural community protocols through the use of a case study. Kabir was also involved in the ABS and GEF planning meeting for Africa where he supported the South African Assistant Director for Resource Use in developing South Africa's ABS priorities to be achieved using the GEF funds.

Deputy Ministerial Visit

The Natural Justice office in Cape Town was visited by the Deputy Minister, Department of Science and Technology, Derek Hanekom, to congratulate Natural Justice on winning the SEED Gold Prize for 2009. The Deputy Minister also serves on the international SEED board, and was particularly interested in hearing how Natural Justice is using bio-cultural community protocols to empower ILC’s in ABS and other negotiations frameworks. The visit was an informal one, in which the Deputy Minister offered the support of SEED and DST; the formal award ceremony to take place in January 2010. In the picture opposite, the Deputy Minister, left, speaks to Johanna von Braun and Scott Dunlop of Natural Justice.

Biocultural Community Protocols in the Headlines

Natural Justice's work in India has been recognized by the Union Health Ministry's AYUSH department. The Times of India reports that a task force will be set up to provide legal recognition for development of traditional healthcare practitioners. AYUSH is considering establishing an inter-ministerial working group in consultation with the Ministry of Environment and Forests for capacity-building of local communities to develop Bio-cultural Community Protocols (BCPs) which affirm communities' rights to the customary use of their natural resources and to regulate access to their traditional knowledge and genetic resources according to free, prior and informed consent. Click here for the link to the article.

Natural Justice Activities at WG ABS 8, Montreal

Harry Jonas presented at a side event on bio-cultural protocols on Wednesday 11 November. The side event was introduced by Balakrishna Pisupati (UNEP-DELC) who also launched a community protocols website developed by Natural Justice. The other speakers were Ana Persic(UNESCO), Barbara Lassen (GTZ) and Brendan Tobin (Irish Centre for Human Rights). Kabir Bavikatte spoke at a side event on Thursday hosted by the Irish Centre for Human Rights and included presentations by Joji Carino (Tebtebba) and Brendan Tobin.

Publishing activities:

In addition, Natural Justice made three submissions to ECO, a publication of the CBD Alliance. The following are links to those articles:

1) ABS (1) Towards a traditional knowledge commons;

2) Intervention by Natural Justice on behalf of Civil Society Organizations on Capacity Building
ABSWG-8, Montreal, Canada - 9 Nov 2009

3) ABS (3) Article by Johanna von Braun and Kabir Bavikatte: No narrowing of the definition of TK

Furthermore, an article written by Natural Justice was published in Square Brackets, the CBD newsletter for civil society on biocultural community protocols.

Publishing Activity

In the latest edition, November 2009, of [Square Brackets], which is a newsletter focussing on the CBD and civil society, an article written by Natural Justice was published. The edition of the newsletter was published to coincide with the current negotiations of the Working Group on ABS. The article can be read here:
Bio-cultural Community Protocols as a Community-based Approach to Ensuring the Local Integrity of Environmental Law and Policy

Working Group on ABS

Natural Justice is at the 8th meeting of the Working Group on ABS (ABS 8) being held in Montreal. ABS 8 is addressing the nature of the regime, TK, capacity building, compliance, access and benefit sharing. Kabir Bavikatte continues to advise the African Group to ensure that the future regime is calibrated to contribute to the MDGs in Africa, including tangible environmental and social outcomes. Johanna von Braun, Elan Abrell and Harry Jonas are working within the CBD (NGO) Alliance to maintain pressure on parties to broker a comprehensive and legally binding international regime on ABS. Natural Justice will also be involved in a number of side events including on the Vilm workshop on TK, the TK commons and bio-cultural community protocols.

Bio-cultural Community Protocols Side Event

Together with UNEP, Natural Justice hosted a side event on bio-cultural community protocols at the Working Group on Article 8j meeting held in Montreal in November. The event was introduced by Alphonse Kambu (UNEP-DELC) and a book on BCPs by Natural Justice, published by UNEP, was launched by Bakary Kante (UNEP-DELC). A film on BCPs was screened and was followed by presentations by: Ilse Kohler-Rollefson (LPP), Hanwant Singh and Dallibai Raika (LPPS), Harry Jonas and Kabir Bavikatte (Natural Justice) and Lucy Mulenkei (Indigenous Information Network).

Picture: Harry Jonas, left, at the BCP side event