These photos document a gathering of indigenous groups from China, Bhutan, and Peru. They met in the spring to discuss climate change and plan a crop exchange program.
First published on August 18, by Adam Kerby in YES! Magazine.
Indigenous people have the solutions to climate change. They should be allowed to speak out at the UN climate talks.
First published on 29 July, by Alejandro Argumedo in Responding to Climate Change (RTCC).
Modern breeding techniques, GM crop imports and commercial seeds mean that many of China’s local varieties are under threat
Article in Langscape Magazine explores these concepts in the context of the SIFOR project.
A side event hosted by the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) this week called on negotiators at the World Intellectual Property Organization to include innovation by small-scale farmers and asked for complementarity of several international instruments dealing with this issue.
Local newspaper reports on the innovations identified by SIFOR project communities in Kilifi and Kwale counties.
The meeting of the Working Group on Article 8(j) in Montreal (7-11 October), reaffirmed the need to recognize and integrate traditional knowledge systems of indigenous and local communities into the work of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Peruvian indigenous farmers have been angered by a government research agency that has claimed it owns intellectual property (IP) rights over more than fifty traditional varieties of potatoes bred in the Peruvian Andes.
This week, from 24 to 28 September, witnesses the opening in Oman of the Fifth Session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, also known as the seed treaty.
On 24th July 2013, the first SIFOR stakeholder workshop in the Central Himalayas brought together over 100 participants - leading scientists, local farmers, state governments and NGOs.
The Nagoya Protocol requires that:
Each Party shall take measures to raise awareness of the importance of genetic resources and traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources, and related access and benefit-sharing issues” (Article 21).
Awareness raising measures may include:
organising meetings of indigenous and local communities and relevant stakeholders and involving them in implementation of the Protocol;
establishing a help desk, and a national clearing house;
IIED Sustaining Local Food Systems, Biodiversity and Livelihoods programme. This site provides information on biocultural heritage and rights in Peru, India, Indonesia and Iran.
Indigenous Peoples' Climate Change Assessment (IPCCA). Provides information on how the IPCCA's local assessments are using biocultural heritage to shape their concepts and methodologies.
Resilient farming, adaptation and food security
The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) aims to promote intellectual property rights (IPRs) worldwide. In 2000, it established an inter-governmental committee to address IPR issues relating to genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore, including how to protect traditional knowledge from misappropriation and how to share benefits from commercialisation equitably.
We are facing a double extinction crisis - biological and cultural - as a result of prevailing development models and globalization.
The FAO estimates we have lost three quarters of all crop genetic resources in the past 100 years. Modern farming, based on just a few species and varieties, has spread across the globe, weakening agriculture’s genetic basis and our capacity to adapt to changing climates. Yet policymakers often see traditional farming systems rich in genetic diversity as a hindrance to economic growth.
Biocultural heritage, as a concept, has evolved in response to traditional knowledge policies that have tended only to protect the intellectual component of knowledge systems, and not the equally crucial biological, cultural and landscape components. It reflects indigenous communities’ holistic worldview, where everything is inter-dependent and inter-connected.
