Deconstructing Biocultural Diversity and Conservation

From April 25-26, Natural Justice attended a seminar on biocultural diversity and conservation in Sabah, Malaysia. It is the first of three seminars and part of an interactive course designed by the Global Diversity Foundation (GDF) and funded by the Darwin Initiative UK. This seminar, facilitated by Dr. Rajindra Puri (University of Kent), was entitled "Reframing Our Ecology: Concepts and Debates for Research and Advocacy in Human-Environment Relationships". Drawing on a selection of recent academic literature and case studies from around the world, participants explored concepts and methods of biocultural diversity; community-based conservation; protected areas; and poverty and conservation. Community researchers from Ulu Papar and Bundu Tuhan also presented on their experiences and activities over the past several years, which have included a range of participatory research and communication techniques such as demographic surveys, mapping, video, and photography. The next seminar will be held in June.

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Bhutan: Will ABS Make Us Happier?

The National Biodiversity Center of Bhutan hosted a two-day multi-stakeholder capacity development workshop on Developing a National Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) Policy for Bhutan. The workshop was facilitated by Kabir Bavikatte (Natural Justice) and Morten Tvedt (Fridtjof Nansen Institute). The workshop explored a number of issues arising from the Nagoya Protocol on ABS, including regulating access to genetic resources and traditional knowledge in Bhutan, ensuring compliance with Bhutanese ABS law, and the rights of Bhutanese communities.

The workshop had 32 participants representing Bhutan's Ministry of Forests and Agriculture, civil society organizations, community groups, and research and private sectors. One of the most interesting aspects of the workshop was a collective visioning process of what a potential ABS policy for Bhutan could look like. The visioning process sought to use Bhutan's Gross National Happiness indicators to analyze whether Bhutan needed ABS as an incentive for conservation considering that 70% of Bhutan's lands are under forest cover. The participants decided that Bhutan required an ABS policy to secure benefits and livelihoods to be able to justify their strong conservation policies to a growing population. However, they wanted to take the time to develop an ABS policy with a difference - one that would generate livelihoods, develop Bhutan's research capacity, collaborate with ethical companies, focus on products that are environmentally friendly, and stay true to their cultural and spiritual values.

The workshop will be followed by further planning meetings facilitated by Bhutan's National Biodiversity Center. The meetings will be held with the aim of developing a road map for an ABS policy that is widely consulted in Bhutan and is rooted in the criteria of Gross National Happiness.

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Attempts to Justify Land-grabbing Criticized by Global CSOs

From April 18-20, the World Bank will be leading discussions of how to operationalize "responsible" large-scale land acquisitions, centred largely around their "Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment that Respect Rights, Livelihoods and Resources" (RAI). According to a broad global coalition of social movements and civil society organizations, the push for RAI is "about creating an illusion that by following a set of standards, large-scale land acquisitions can proceed without disastrous consequences to peoples, communities, ecosystems and the climate... Even if done 'transparently', the transfer of large tracts of land, forests, coastal areas and water sources to investors is still going to deprive smallholder farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk and other local communities from crucial, life sustaining resources for generations to come. In many countries, there is an urgent need to strengthen systems that protect land tenure of peasants and small-scale food producers, and many social movements have been fighting for recognition of their rights to land for many years. The RAI principles will make any progress on agrarian reform or land rights meaningless."

The coalition continues by stating that the "path to food sovereignty and justice" must be rooted in the "broad consensus [that] has grown over the past several years around the real solutions to hunger, the food crisis and climate chaos, namely that:

• peasant agriculture, family farming, artisanal fishing and indigenous food procurement systems that are based on ecological methods and short marketing circuits are the ways forward toward sustainable, healthy and livelihood-enhancing food systems;
• production, distribution and consumption systems must radically change to fit the carrying capacity of the earth;
• new agricultural policies that respond to the needs, proposals and direct control of small-scale food producers have to replace the current top-down, corporate-led, neoliberal regimes; and
• genuine agrarian and aquatic reform programmes have to be carried through to return land and ecosystems to local communities."

Read the full press release on Focus on the Global South.

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