| debates in part because of the massive perceived potential for exploitation of biogenetic resources for biotechnology. Similarly, traditional knowledge is expected to drastically cut Research and Development costs. The resulting bioprospecting feeding-frenzy may attenuate when, as many experts predict, the highly exaggerated hype converts to disappointing profits. In the mean time, however, expectations are exhalted and IPRs have become a code for unethical and unsustainable exploitation of local communities and their resources. Scientists and scientific institutions are affected by this situation as they become involved - actively or passively - with the private sector. Plant, animal, and cultural material collected with public funds for scientific, non-profit purposes are now open for commercial exploitation. Research, even in universities and museums, is increasingly funded by corporations, raising questions of who controls the resulting data. “Purely scientific” data banks have become the “mines” for “biodiversity prospecting”. Publishing of information, traditionally the hallmark of academic success, has become a superhighway for transporting restricted (or even sacred) information into the unprotectable “public domain”. Companies that seek ethical and equitable relationships with Indigenous peoples find their efforts undermined by exploitative practices of unethical corporations. Identification of legally- constituted entities and bona fide community representatives may be harrowingly difficult, as can be the form and distribution of benefits. Existing business standards and philosophy exclude any obligations to pre-contract and post-profit responsibilities that have become necessary to insure long-term social and ecological commitments. Nation States find themselves proclaiming major expansions of sovereignty over traditional resources, but with no means to implement or exercise the responsibility that increased sovereignty demands. Frequently, neither technical capacity nor capital potential are adequate to develop the knowledge or genetic materials that are claimed. Furthermore, valuing Indigenous technologies threatens the ideological base that has historically been used to marginalise and exploit local community resources. It is, therefore, problematic that benefits to Nation States will ever “trickle-down” to local communities. International law hardly exists, and where it does - as in the case of IPRs - it favours industrialised nations rather than bio-culturally rich nations. There is little evidence that existing Western legal structures can be adapted to enhance conservation of biological diversity or empowerment of Indigenous, traditional, and local communities. Any attempts will need to combine “bundles of rights” from a wide-range of agreements to guide a newly emerging system. The Convention on Biological Diversity, and related UNCED agreements, call for access to, protection of and benefit sharing from the use and wider application of traditional technologies. However, enforcement mechanisms - nor, indeed, even the general basis of agreement as to what to enforce - are far from appearing on the international scene. The fundamental question of what are legal requirements versus moral and ethical responsibilities portends many difficulties for all “stakeholders”. Rather than looking hopelessly on, one hopes that the situation will provide opportunities for |
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| new dialogues, increased recognition of Indigenous peoples and their knowledge, new codes of ethics and standards of conduct, socially ecologically responsible business practices, holistic approaches to sustainability, and alternative concepts of property, ownership, and value. IPRs - replaced by a rights-based Traditional Resource Rights concept - can serve to catalyse this dialogue, and, indeed, transform conflict into conciliation. |
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