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Alliance Center for
Intellectual Property Rights


PROTECTION OF TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE FOR MITIGATING CLIMATE CHANGE

Nobember 1, 2024

*Ms. Hemalatha R.

INTRODUCTION

The concept of climate change is becoming a booming issue in the changing world. The impact of the earth’s warming on physical and economic conditions is becoming clearer as time passes. The climate change issue has become an issue to an extent that it requires urgent attention. It also requires hundreds of billions dollars investments for climate mitigation and adaptation. Therefore, it is important to provide strategies to adapt to climate change using the Traditional knowledge of the Indigenous people where “Traditional knowledge refers to knowledge acquired over time by people in an indigenous society, in one or more cultures, based on experience and adjustment to a local culture and climate, and continuously predisposed by each generation's developments and practices” Environmentalists increasingly recognize how important it is in the future for the planet for indigenous ways of doing things to disseminate. An emerging collection of research maintains that employing ancient techniques in food production, firefighting, and the conservation of threatened species could potentially reverse the catastrophic disintegration of the natural world. With a declaration urging “an effective and immediate mainstreaming of (indigenous) scientific knowledge into all relevant decisions and actions to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste”, the Stockholm+50 conference in early June took a strong stand for indigenous peoples. The Biological Diversity Act, 2002, and Biological Diversity Rules, 2004, take measures to accumulate a database and to establish an information and documentation system for the biological resources. All of this information needs to be protected, and geographical indications are an effective way to do so. While intellectual property rights generally refer to inventions and works of the mind, others, like geographic indications, aim to recognize the art and traditions of a particular community that is part of a particular region. For instance, “Oryza longistaminata is wild rice growing in Mali, Oryza longistaminata is perennial wild rice with various agronomically valuable traits, including large biomass on poor soils, high nitrogen use efficiency, and resistance to insect pests and disease. Local farmers considered it a weed, but the migrant Bela community developed detailed knowledge of its agricultural value. The Bela community developed a systematic understanding of the distinct properties of this and other kinds of rice and recognized that oryza longistaminata has stronger resistance to diseases such as rice blight than many other local kinds of rice. Guided by this traditional knowledge, researchers subsequently isolated and cloned a gene named Xa21, which conferred this resistance in rice plants.” Thus, when we look at these kind of plants that has such qualities, it provides us with solutions that could be used to mitigate climate change as such plants would be able to survive some of the consequences of climate change. “IPRs, like copyrights and patents, are legal rights created as mechanisms to foster innovation: the creation and dissemination of new knowledge or new expressions. These rights are granted to a defined natural person or a group of people identified as the inventor or creator, although they can be transferred to another through sale or donation. In contrast, traditional knowledge and practices are often passed down from generation to generation and do not have an identifiable individual inventor. Therefore, it has been widely argued that IPR is not appropriate for traditional knowledge because it protects new knowledge created by individuals and does not recognize collective rights.” However, some IPRs – specifically geographical indications – are intended to recognize members of a long-standing group or community who uphold norms that are intrinsic to their culture rather than to recognize innovation. It aims to recognize the goodwill and reputation that a group of producers has worked so hard to establish over many years if not centuries. In particular, geographical indications can generate financial benefits for manufacturers who use common practices in the area where the product has historically been produced. The problem with using GI in India is that the current producers of the product were not involved in drafting the Act, so the beneficiary parties of the GI are not the current producers of the product. If GI is to be used to protect traditional knowledge, then issues such as free riding, prisoners' dilemma, and quality control must be addressed. Therefore, a suigeneris system would be a viable option.

REFERENCES:

  1. Peng X, Xie J, Li W, Xie H, Cai Y, Ding X, Comparison of wild rice (Oryza longistaminata) tissues identifies rhizome-specific bacterial and archaeal endophytic microbiomes communities and network structures, 16(2), Plos One, 0246687 (2021)
  2. Symma Finn,Mose Herne,and Dorothy Castille,, The Value of Traditional Ecological Knowledge for the Environmental Health Sciences and Biomedical Research, 125(8), Environmental health perspectives, p.085006.(2017)
  3. Erik Gómez-Baggethun, Esteve Corbera, and Victoria Reyes-García, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Global Environmental Change: Research findings and policy implications, National Library of Medicine, 18(4), Ecology and society: a journal of integrative science for resilience and sustainability, 72 (2013)
  4. Ruifei Tang, Michael C. Gavin, A Classification of Threats to Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Conservation Responses, 68, Journal of Rural Studies, 46-53 (2016)

Author:
* Ms. Hemalatha R.
5th Year B.A.LL. B. (Hons.) Student,
Alliance School of Law, Alliance University.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of the Alliance Centre for Intellectual Property Rights (ACIPR) and the Centre does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.