Sustainable use of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge: A Case Study for Implementing the Nagoya Protocol

Sustainable development focuses on social and human, natural and economic factors. By recognizing and protecting Indigenous ecological knowledge each of these factors is addressed. Many Australian government programs recognize that Indigenous communities hold knowledge critical to the conservation of biological diversity and natural resource management. In research commissioned for the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage in 2013, the Indigenous Knowledge Forum proposed a legislative ‘Competent Authority’ framework for ‘Recognising and Protecting Aboriginal Knowledge Associated with Natural Resource Management’. The Authority would provide the governance framework for administering a legal regime covering the creation, maintenance and protection of community knowledge databases. The Garuwanga Project is about finding the best legal structure of governance for Indigenous Australians to manage their traditional knowledge and culture, including their ecological knowledge, and enable Australia to comply with the Nagoya Protocol. The aim is to provide the communities with a path to sustainable development and capacity building. This project addresses concerns over the form, independence and funding of such an Authority, as well as local Indigenous representation, by facilitating Aboriginal Community engagement in identifying, evaluating and recommending an appropriate Competent Authority legal structure. Most competent authorities around the world are government-based organizations or departments, however, Aboriginal communities have expressed great concern about such institutions having any form of control over their traditional knowledge. Accordingly, what is unique about the Garuwanga Project is the proposal for a competent authority that is independent of the government. This paper will report on the governance model proposed by the Garuwanga Project in its Discussion Paper together with the preliminary outcomes of the consultations with Aboriginal communities across Australia