This paper explores the promise and peril of using registries of knowledge as tools for the people of local and indigenous communities to employ for the conservation, sustainable use and sharing of benefits from their biological diversity, biological resources, and associated traditional knowledge. In particular, the paper explores the impact of applying intellectual property rights and other tools for controlling ownership and access to registries. It includes brief preliminary case studies reviewing current efforts.
Much of the world’s surviving biological diversity is found in areas inhabited by indigenous and local communities that are relatively impoverished and marginalized within both political and economic systems. Yet these communities typically have rich traditions of knowledge associated with their biodiversity and biological resources (together termed “bioresources”), as well as practices relating to those resources. This knowledge and these practices are often referred to by the shorthand phrase “traditional knowledge.” While we follow that protocol in this paper, we emphasize that the knowledge held by these cultures is dynamic and includes a constant stream of innovation — the knowledge systems may be “traditional” but the results of the systems’ operations are constantly changing.