Rewarding Conservation of Biological and Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge and Contemporary Grassroots Creativity

The traditions of creativity, conservation and innovation exist in various developing countries along side the continuation of obsolete or inefficient technologies and resource use practices. At any point of time, one would notice certain resource use practices continuing in almost the same form with very little change for more than a millennium, few hundred years or few decades. However, such a situation coexists simultaneously with the spurts of contemporary creativity using traditional biological and genetic resources. This creativity manifests in the traditional ways of using an existing resource with a new purpose in mind or in a modern way (that is using modern techniques or tools) for meeting a contemporary need. There has been a widespread concern that erosion of traditional knowledge is as serious a problem as erosion of biological and genetic diversity. While there are many reasons for this erosion such as expanding physical and urban infrastructure, increasing incorporation in market economies, weakening link between grand parent and grand children generation, higher emigration of youth from rural areas, faster diffusion of modern crop varieties (largely developed by public sector for public domain use during green revolution), diffusion of few biological species under monoculture in forests, fisheries, and other sectors, and reduced control of local communities on their own resources. Indifference of public policy makers in various countries towards the positive aspects of certain Traditional Knowledge Systems (TKS) including community institutions for conservation, exchange and augmentation of biological diversity have also contributed to this erosion. It is ironic that many countries complain about unfair treatment of TK and genetic resources in the international markets (and rightly so) but take very few steps to stop similar exploitation in domestic markets. In addition to these factors one factor, which contributes significantly, though not entirely is the lack of adequate mix of incentives for conservation of biological genetic resources and their sustainable utilization and augmentation. These incentives could be material or non-material, targeted at individual, groups or communities. It is my submission that a portfolio of incentives will need to be evolved, suited to specific situations and conditions. However, in this volume we restrict to the role of one specific set of incentives dealing with different kinds of intellectual property aimed at protecting the interests of and innovations by, individuals and or communities. While evaluating the scope of existing intellectual property instruments I will also speculate on the modifications of these instruments as well as generation of new instruments and mechanisms to meet the goal of conservation, sustainable utilization, augmentation and fair and just share of benefits among different stakeholders.