ABSTRACT

Over the past twenty years, indigenous peoples-together with their languages, cultures, and knowledge systems-have become the focus of increasing international attention. In part this is the result of growing interest in the use of traditional knowledge held by local communities on the utilization of flora and fauna, and in the genetic resources, such as agricultural landraces and medicinal plants, held by indigenous peoples, with a potential for the biotechnology development of new products by the pharmaceutical, agrochemical, seed, cosmetics and nutraceutical industries.1 Frequently cited figures indicating the enormous market potential of bioprospecting2 —such as US$ 43 billion per year for sales of natural-product based pharmaceuticals (Principe 1989), US$ 50 billion per year for seeds derived from traditional crop varieties (RAFI 1994: 19), and similar figures for other natural compounds-have increasingly led countries rich in biological and cultural diversity to treat their flora, fauna and traditional knowledge as valuable national resources that must be protected from unauthorized exploitation, being ‘developed’ instead to benefit the country and its citizens.