ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Samoan perspectives on ABS to show how international advocacy has driven agendas in ways that are counterproductive to achieving sustainability goals, protection of knowledge and benefits to villages and post-colonial governments. Applying the Talanoa methodology centred on the ‘voice’ of knowledge holders in interpreting traditional knowledge and local experiences, practices and principles, the chapter addresses some basic steps that could be undertaken to facilitate a more productive, less neo-colonial cross-cultural knowledge exchange about ABS, and concludes that continuing to unfold agendas designed by international bodies, academics and non-governmental organisations who lack understanding of non-western legal systems and the complexity of survival in a least developed country is not a productive pathway to sustainability.
