ABSTRACT
This chapter reports on some of our work funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project grant. This chapter outlines the participatory action research project involving research and work with communities in Vanuatu and Cook Islands. To date, the project has focused on patent-landscaping activities to profile research activity relating to traditional uses of plants used for food and medicines in Indigenous communities in these countries, as well as the development of biocultural community protocols which reflect and respect local customary laws and norms. In this chapter, we explore biopiracy and technological innovations as drivers for the use of protocols to protect Indigenous knowledge of genetic resources. The geographical context for Vanuatu, Cook Islands and Australia is provided to foreground the discussion on the legal contexts for each of these nation states. While Australia may consider itself a world leader, it lags behind Vanuatu and Cook Islands who have both made considerable progress towards implementing the ethos of the Nagoya Protocol. Vanuatu has both ratified the Nagoya Protocol and sought to implement it through the Environmental Management and Conservation Act which passed parliament in 2014. Cook Islands enacted a Traditional Knowledge Act in 2013. With the Nagoya Protocol establishing the parameters for the use of community protocols, and Vanuatu and Cook Islands governments enabling recognition of them, our work has involved working with communities in those locations to assist with establishing protocols in several communities. Protocols are usually based on customary laws and are considered to include relational obligations. This type of obligation is often labelled by others as “stewardship” and “guardianship”. These terms may be useful for explaining what biocultural protocols are, and how they operate. However, the authors caution against overly prescriptive use of the terms as they risk essentialising Indigenous peoples, their knowledge and cultural practices. The chapter ends with some challenges in developing and implementing community protocols.
