ABSTRACT
The loss of biodiversity has been recognised as one of the most serious problems our planet faces. Indigenous ecological knowledge (IEk) has been recognised as a valuable tool in biodiversity protection (Commonwealth of Australia 2013; cf. Holcombe 2009) and with this recognition comes a need to acknowledge and respect it in terms of its importance to indigenous people and its current and potential value to industry. The commercialisation of genetic resources has often been protected through patent laws but in most cases this has brought little benefit to the holders of the traditional knowledge on which these patents have been built. The international law regime has attempted, through the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), to ensure national governments acknowledge this in a way that respects and includes indigenous people and their knowledge. This is provided through the fair and equitable sharing of benefits with indigenous people for the use of biological resources and IEk. Access and benefit sharing arrangements are crucially important because of the inadequacy of intellectual property rights to deal with IEk.
