IPACC Workshop in Pretoria

Photo from www.ipacc.org.zaLesle Jansen of Natural Justice participated in a workshop hosted by Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC) in Pretoria from 23-25 July. IPACC is a network of over 155 organizations in 22 African countries working towards the recognition of indigenous peoples in Africa. The workshop focused on indigenous peoples’ rights and recognition in South Africa and took place at the University of Pretoria. The...

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Siu Community Petition on Lamu Land

The Siu community in Lamu, Kenya, have taken the step of developing and signing a petition, presented to the Kenyan National Assembly on 21 June 2012, on the irregular allocation of land in Lamu. The petition, signed by 294 members of the Lamu community states: "We, the undersigned citizens of Kenya who are residents of Siu Town in Lamu and squatters, draw the attention of the House to the following: That aware that a committee with...

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Public-Private Exchange on ABS in Mozambique

From 24-26 July, Gino Cocchiaro of Natural Justice participated in the Public-Private Exchange on ABS Implementation for the Southern Africa Region, which took place in Maputo, Mozambique. The meeting was jointly organized by the ABS Capacity Development Initiative, Phytotrade Africa and the Union for Ethical Biotrade. The meeting followed Phytotrade Africa's Annual General Meeting and was attended by representatives from the South African government,...

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New film: "Palawan: Our struggle for nature and culture"

Ancestral Land/Domain Watch (ALDAW), a local network of indigenous people struggling for the protection of their ancestral lands against large-scale corporations in the Philippines, has produced a short film entitled "Palawan: Our struggle for nature and culture". The synopsis is as follows:The struggle to save Palawan (known as the Philippines’ Last Frontier) is not only about saving trees and rare species. It is also about nourishing the Filipino cultural heritage, so powerfully represented by those indigenous communities that - after escaping...

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New RRI Report on NRM

With increased pressures upon the environment, and growing awareness of the need to engage broader populations in conservation efforts, the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) has released a new series of papers which spotlight women activists involved in natural resource management (NRM) in Nepal, Indonesia and China, along with more general research on the intersection of NRM and gender in Asia. The compilation is entitled ‘The Challenges...

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New Film on BCPs

As biocultural community protocols continue to spread around the world as means of community self-articulation and legal protection, a new film entitled ‘Biocultural Community Protocols: Articulating and Asserting Stewardship’ has been released. The film was directed by Sanjay Barnela and produced by Natural Justice in collaboration with Moving Images, India. The film was funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation. The film follows the experiences of two communities, the traditional healers of Bushbuckridge, South Africa, and the Raika community...

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New Paper on Traditional Resource Rights

Traditional resource rights (TRRs) are an integrated rights approach developed by Darrell Posey and colleagues in the 1990s. TRRs emerged as the result of an explicitly political legal project to more accurately reflect Indigenous peoples' and local communities’ views and concerns, and focused on integrating otherwise disparate legal regimes, instruments, and provisions. Posey describes TRRs in the seminal paper Indigenous Peoples and Traditional...

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New UNEP Global Environment Outlook

The Earth System is the basis for all of the consumption and work undertaken by the 7 billion human beings who now live on earth. Through increased exploitation of the earth’s resources, the Earth System’s ability to sustain human existence is rapidly deteriorating. The fifth United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Global Environment Outlook (GEO), released this month, traces the state and trends of the global environment through a wealth of...

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Continuing Negotiations on Traditional Cultural Expressions Legal Instrument

The World Intellectual Property Organisation’s (WIPO) Intergovernmental Commission’s (IGC) negotiations on the draft text of an international legal instrument on the protection of traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) continued from 13-17 July, 2012. The WIPO Secretariat announced that good progress was made on the definition of protectable TCEs, the identification of beneficiaries, and exceptions and limitations to the scope of protection. An...

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Greenpeace Panel on India's Nuclear Liability Act

On 16 July, 2012, Greenpeace India held a panel discussion at the National Law School of India University in Bangalore to explore issues surrounding the nature of supplier liability under the recent Nuclear Liability Act 2010, as well as the disjuncture between the purpose of the Act and its proposed rules of implementation. The rules limit the right of recourse of the operator (ie the right of the nuclear operator to sue the supplier in case the...

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State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples

With the threats faced by indigenous peoples and minorities increasing, Minority Rights Group International (MRG) has released its annual “State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples Report.” The report finds that “the scale and severity of the threats to indigenous peoples and minorities have reached new proportions, due to an unprecedented demand for the world’s remaining resources.” The report “provides concrete evidence of...

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Policy Brief on IPRs and Rio +20

In the aftermath of the United Nations Convention on Sustainable Development (Rio +20), Ahmed Abdel Latif of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development has prepared a policy brief entitled ‘Intellectual Property Rights and Green Technologies from Rio to Rio: An Impossible Dialogue?’ The brief considers the absence of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) out of Rio +20 relative to the 1992 Conference on Sustainable Development....

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E-Module on TK and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity

Natural Justice has developed a number of draft e-learning modules to support communities developing biocultural community protocols (BCPs) to increase their understanding of key international legal frameworks, concepts and programmes. These modules supplement ‘BCPs: A Toolkit for Community Facilitators’. The second module in this series examines international law’s recognition of and protections for communities’ traditional knowledge and sustainable...

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Asia-Pacific Preparatory Workshop for COP11 Concludes

From 9-12 July in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Holly Shrumm (Natural Justice) served as a resource person for a preparatory workshop for representatives of Indigenous peoples and local communities in Asia and the Pacific. The workshop was organized by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and hosted by the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) and the Indigenous Peoples' International Centre for Policy Research and Education (TEBTEBBA)....

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Asia-Pacific Preparatory Workshop for COP11 Begins

From 9-12 July in Chiang Mai, Thailand, the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is holding a workshop for representatives of Indigenous peoples and local communities from Asia and the Pacific in preparation for the 11th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP11). The provisional agenda includes an introduction to the CBD and mechanisms for participation of Indigenous peoples and local communities;...

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UNDRIP E-Module for Communities

Natural Justice has developed a number of draft e-learning modules to support communities developing biocultural community protocols (BCPs) to increase their understanding of key international legal frameworks, concepts and programmes. These modules supplement ‘BCPs: A Toolkit for Community Facilitators’. The module on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) seeks to provide insight into UNDRIP’s provisions...

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Endogenous Development Training in Techiman, Ghana

The Natural Justice team and a number of its partners from Kenya, South Africa and Namibia attended a one week Certificate Program in Local and Indigenous Knowledge for Community-Driven Development in Techiman, Ghana from 24-30 June, 2012. Coordinated by the Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development (CIKOD) in collaboration with the University of Cape Coast and Water Aid in Ghana, the course introduced the concept of "endogenous...

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Second Intergovernmental Committee on the Nagoya Protocol

Kabir Bavikatte of Natural Justice participated in the second meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee on the Nagoya Protocol (ICNP 2) in Delhi from July 2-6, 2012. Kabir participated at the ICNP 2 in his capacity as the legal advisor to the African Group of parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The key issues that were negotiated at the ICNP 2 dealt with cooperative procedures and institutional mechanisms to promote compliance with...

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