Background for the 6th International Indigenous Forum on Biological Diversity (October 15-19 2001) held in preparation of the meeting of the Working Group on Access and Benefit Sharing (October 22.-26. 2001) established by COP 5 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Biodiversity – Neither "Resource" nor "Nature" but Process
The international debate on biodiversity takes a "crisis" as its point of departure: on the level of species as well as corresponding ecosystems, but also within species an irrevocable loss of biodiversity occurs which exceeds natural (evolutionary) processes.

Supported by commercial biotechnological interests, the problem of biodiversity loss is quickly reduced to a question of resource scarcity. Commercialization and privatization through exclusive patents and intellectual property rights are expected to minimize losses, create conservation incentives, standardize access and, above all, ensure the profitability of research investments.

Traditional conservation interests which marginalize cultural, social, and economic elements in their concepts of "nature" cannot contribute to a differentiated analysis of the question of biodiversity. On the contrary: An abstract opposition of nature and culture, cultivated not at last by euro-american environmentalists, continues to structure this conflict as well, heir to a history of colonial-romantic projections which took an interest in the "other" of civilization primarily to create a counter-image of socio-ecological integrity, frozen in a utopian timelessness.

This image is challenged above all by indigenous peoples. The assumption that they exist foremost as custodians of socio-ecological integrity tends to place them on the side of "nature" and thus in an opposition to culture and modernity that both simplifies the complexity of their livelyhoods and obscures the interdependence of ecological sustainability and their demand for cultural, economic, and political self-determination.

Indigenous peoples ask that their traditions be understood as systems of knowledge of their own that integrate cultural, ecological, economic, social, and spiritual elements and can contribute more to the protection of biological diversity than a patent system that isolates this diversity as a "resource" or attempts to "protect" it by way of its commercialization. The centrality of "tradition" is not to be understood as an emphasis on the immutability of collective identities, but as a consequence of the necessity to actively maintain and develop the knowledge contained in these traditions as well as the need to resist cultural marginalization and environmental degradation.

As long as biodiversity is exclusively understood either as a resource to be protected or an attribute of a somehow extra-historical nature to be conserved "as such," but not as a complex process determined by a multiplicity of actors, neither the existing plurality of interests nor the actual causes of biodiversity loss will come into view.

Indigenous Perspectives on Causes of Biodiversity Loss

Since indigenous peoples probably have the weakest position within the "biodiversity" controversy, contradictions and the ultimate irreconcilability of interests become particularly apparent from their point of view.

The term "indigenous" does not refer to a homogenous population but groups together about 300 to 400 million people based on various criteria. A great number of them live in territories that have generally been accepted as centers of biodiversity. The question of biodiversity protection must therefore take the role of those which maintain and develop this diversity as its point of departure.

Because indigenous peoples do not necessarily want to define themselves in exclusive reference to the states that surround their territories, they rarely identify themselves as "ethnic minorities" vis-ˆ-vis a majority population, also because in several states they make up the majority population. The term "indigenous peoples" and the demand for the recognition of indigenous "nations" tends to follow anglo-american usage, which stresses the commonalities of culture, history, and language rather than the european determination of a people as the population of a state, along with a strong sense of socio-cultural connectedness to their traditional territories. International law has come to accept this usage as well, even though the practice to grant the general right of self-determination to indigenous peoples as well has yet to be generally accepted.

Attempts to define indigenous peoples often come to the conclusion that, beyond general determinations of cultural, ethnic, historical, and linguistic commonalities, a general right to self-determination also includes the right to self-identification. Convention 169 of the ILO (1989), one of the most important documents on the rights of indigenous peoples, also accepts this practice. In the context of biodiversity policy indigenous representatives insist above all on the interdependence of concepts of nature and concepts of the social and give special emphasis to matters of spirituality: the interdependence of all forms of life, sustainability as an obligation also towards future generations, the embeddedness of ecological knowledge in social and religious practices and thus the connectedness of biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity.

Indigenous perspectives attribute biodiversity loss primarily to the radical transformation of ecological and social processes. The integration of colonial and environmental histories makes clear that this is not at all a recent phenomenon: the transfer of resources and thus also the transfer of biological material was greatly accelerated with European colonial expansion, which organized this transfer in the context of various projects of "civilization" and "modernization" in the name of multiple ideologies and religions. Gigantic hydroelectric projects, the extraction of oil and ore, the creation of a giant ãcow complex" (Jeremy Rifkin), or the agrotechnological transformation of subsistence agriculture in the context of the Green Revolution have left their traces in a ãnature" whose treasures had already been the object of desire for centuries of colonial exploitation.

Ex Situ Collections and Farmers' Rights

Today the Botanical Gardens in London or Berlin, whose collections continued to grow with every colonial expedition, contain a major share of the known plantgenetic resources. The Green Revolution, supported by states along with fertilizer and commercial seed industries, established International Agricultural Research Centers all over the South. The gene and seed banks of these centers also contain a major share of biological material central to the production of food and medicine. The status of these so-called ãex situ collections" continues to be controversial and is one of the core conflicts within the biodiversity controversy. Along with other nongovernmental organizations, indigenous peoples demand that the collected material continues to be available at no or low cost, and propose the creation of a ãpublic domain" of biological material to ensure that the establishment of commercial patents do not affect the production of foods especially in the Global South.

Plants that have been cultivated over centuries by indigenous peoples have also been introduced into other regions, even the latest creations of commercial biotechnology contain traces of this history. While mechanisms to protect commercial seed patents had already been developed in the 1960s and now enjoy international enforcement through the protocols of the World Trade Organization, no mechanism exists to even acknowledge comparable efforts in domestication, maintenance, and development by indigenous peoples. This second conflict appears as the question of Farmer's Rights in the biodiversity controversy. The solution remains complex, in part because even a moral acknowledgement is not easily translated into the legal terminology and mechanisms of property rights. Negotiations have therefore attempted to define a catalogue of claims and rights, which include the support of conservation and development activities in the context of the Global Action Plan of 1996. Activists have also tried to articulate concepts of collective rights (so-called traditional resource rights) and establish them as alternatives within existing intellectual property regimes.

The Convention on Biological Diversity

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), established as a consequence of the 1992 Earth Summit, acknowledges the central role of indigenous peoples in the biodiversity process. Even though the CBD does not provide regulations for the question of farmer's rights or the status of ex situ collections (which are still the object of negotiations within the International Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO), indigenous rights are articulated in several articles of the convention.

One of the most important is article 8, which contains general principles of biodiversity protection. The articles demands of each party that it has to "subject to its national legislation, respect, preserve, and maintain knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation of biological diversity and sustainable use of biological diversity and promote their wider application with the approval and involvement of the holders of such knowledge, innovations and practices and encourage the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of such knowledge, innovations, and practices" (8j). Several mechanisms have already been proposed: incentive systems, new forms of participation and co-determination, and an expansion of the rights of self-administration.

Current controversy focuses on article 15, which calls on parties to the convention to address questions of access and benefit sharing. The article affirms national sovereignty over resources as well as the obligation to determine conditions of access, and encourages states to allow "environmentally sound" use of the biological material in their territories. While access requires "prior informed consent" on the respective modalities of access from the state in question, it remains unclear whether this provision requires the approval of local communities as well.

The language of the CBD can be interpreted in ways that emphasize the human rights of indigenous peoples. Observers like the UN are nonetheless aware of the extent to which the protection of human rights is at odds with the expansion and standardization of intellectual property rights in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and suggest that relevant agreements be adapted to human rights standards.

Contradictions CBD – Intellectual Property Rights

The CBD, following common international law practice, affirms the sovereignty of each state over the resources within its territory. In the absence of a multilateral approach most states will establish bilateral contracts to regulate access to "their" biodiversity and thus subordinate indigenous interests to those of the states that surround them. Increasing international pressure on countries in the Global South accelerates the implementation of intellectual property rights that have been developed in the North and continue to accelerate biodiversity loss.

The acknowledgement of biotechnological patents on food plants is a case in point. The tremendous increase in the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and standardized commercial seeds in the wake of the Green Revolution, a state-subsidized transformation of traditional agriculture into the capital- and labor-intensive cultivation of high-yield varieties, has lead to a radical change in sustainably managed ecosystems and reduced the diversity of traditional varieties, irreplaceable reservoir for the development of food plants. Higher yields have temporarily supported a self-sufficiency which turned out be far from sustainable in the long run: small farmers were heavily in debt and increasingly dependent on the import of fertilizer and pesticides.

It does not surprise that the same corporations which supported this ãrevolution" decades ago are now looking for new ways to increase the market shares of commercial seeds. Since seed collection continues to be embedded in the complex social practices of traditional agricultures, such markets have often yet to be created. This can only happen by way of a criminalization of seed collection through commercial patents. Because poor countries are unlikely to establish efficient mechanisms to protect intellectual property rights, so-called ãGenetic Use Restriction Technologies" (GURT) have been designed, that ensure that certain attributes like the capacity for germination depend on the application of biochemical catalysts (contained, for example, in a pesticide). Critics refer to these technologies as âterminator" technologies.

Commercial biotechnology cannot be considered a solution to the problems of hunger and malnutrition. It is almost impossible to cultivate so-called high yield varities "sustainably" in any strict sense of the term: short-term increases in yield are counteracted by enormous capital and environmental costs, in addition to the homogenization of the array of plants actually cultivated when agricultures produce food stuffs primarly for export rather than local use. This includes even the infamous "Golden Rice," a high-yield variety fortified with Vitamin A, whose introduction was accompanied by exceptional media attention as it appeared to offer a simple solution to the complex problem of malnutrition. Seeds are said to remain freely accessible, but the large number of commercial patent application suggests that "Golden Rice" was little more than a public relations strategy to improve the image of an industry currently subject to intense critical scrutiny. Malnutrition, needless to say, is itself the consequence of a complex process of socio-ecological transformation, including the disappearance of a biological diversity maintained in traditional agricultural methods.

Self-Determination & Solidarity

Sympathies for regionalism, subsistence economies, and resistance to cultural homogenization are sometimes expressed in the culturalist and racist language of ethnic chauvinisms. Solidarity with the cause of indigenous peoples' demand to the right to self-determination can probably be expressed most powerfully when it contextualizes the problem of biodiversity loss and offers a critique of the general process of resource privatization, of the growing dominance of agro- and biotechnological corporations, and of the ongoing violation of human rights in the name of a process of "modernization" all of us support as long as our lifestyles depend on the availability of inexpensive energy and other natural resources. Instead of a call for the (nostalgic) conservation of islands of socio-ecological integrity we should stress this interdependence in the name of a general eco-politics of human rights.

Soenke Zehle 10/01