Indigenous Medicinal Knowledge and its importance

Asem Tomba Meetei *

Employee working at Laishram Nabakishore's residence where they make their own medicine for stone cases

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND BIO-PIRACY

The contribution of indigenous traditional knowledge practices to modern pharmaceutical industry and big corporations is great extent. However, indigenous traditional knowledge, which has never been patented and has been in the public domain of traditional and indigenous communities for centuries, is endangered because of bio-piracy (Brosius, 1997).

Most of these bio-resources and knowledge are found in the third world developing countries like India. The fact is that more than 90 per cent of the world's biodiversity is located in Africa, South America, Asia; indigenous communities which have nurtured and developed such knowledge are less compensated for their native knowledge, which is taken from them.

Such inequity is affected owing to the growing use of patents, which grant exclusive protection to Northern corporations and researchers for material or knowledge, which originated from the south (Toledo, 2001). A majority of the populations of the third world in the South heavily rely on indigenous knowledge for their survival.

According to the report of the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), it was estimated that "80 percent of the world's population still continue to rely upon indigenous knowledge for their health care needs and moreover two-thirds of the world's population could not survive without the foods provided through indigenous knowledge of flora and fauna, microbes and farming systems" (Oguamanam, 2006, P.45).

Shiva (2000) clearly points out that "biopiracy and patenting of indigenous knowledge is a double theft because first it allows theft of creativity and innovation, and secondly, the exclusive rights established by patents on stolen knowledge steal economic options of everyday survival on the basis of our indigenous biodiversity and indigenous knowledge. Over time, the patents can be used to create monopolies and make everyday products highly priced" (Shiva, 2000, p.501).

II.6. TRADE RELATED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS (TRIPs)

In our modern time, ideas and knowledge are considered as an integral part of trade relations. Patents and copyrights are awarded to people and organizations to protect their creative and innovative inputs into products and processes through World Trade Organization's regime (WTO). This system of implications really affect for those who live in poor developing countries (Drahos and Mayne, 2002).

The North-South inequality in terms of trade and economic developments are owing to the Western Intellectual Property Rights regimes (IPRs) and because of this, most of the indigenous communities in the third world countries face the problems of livelihoods and survival since the majority of the indigenous people in South depend on their biodiversity (Shiva, 2000).

In this context, anthropologists and sociologists have a pivotal role to protect the indigenous knowledge of biological resources and intellectual property rights of the indigenous communities (Brush, 1993). "Intellectual Property Rights are those rights, which are given to the creators to prevent others from using their inventions, innovative designs or other creations and to use that rights to negotiate payment in return for others using them and some of the areas, which covered under the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) are
(i) Copyright and related rights;
(ii) Trademarks including service marks;
(iii) Geographical indications;
(iv) Industrial designs;
(v) Patents; and
(vi) Lay-out designs of integrated circuits" (Maskus, 2000, p. 27).

II.7. IMPLICATIONS OF TRADE RELATED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS (TRIPS) FOR THE THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES

The most burning issue is that knowledge can be patented, which has serious implications for access to health, agricultural practices and other health related fields. The western countries dominance of intellectual property rights can be seen from the following data: 97 percent of all patents worldwide is concentrated in a handful of countries; in 1993, ten countries accounted for 84 percent of global Research and Development (R &D); 95 percent of the patents granted in the United States (US) over the past two decades were conferred on applications from ten countries which captured more than 90 percent of cross-border royalties and licensing fees; 70 percent of global royalty and licensing fee payments were between parent and affiliate in Trans-National Corporations (TNCs); and more than 80 percent of the patents that have been granted in the Third World Countries (TWCs) belong to residents of industrial nations (Correa, 2001).

II.8. TRADE RELATED INTELLECTUAL PROPERT RIGHTS (TRIPs) AND PUBLIC HEALTH

Under the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights' (TRIPs) agreement, a pharmaceutical company can obtain a patent for both the process and product for 20 years. The product patents provide for absolute protection of the product, whereas process patents provide protection in respect of the technology and method of manufacture. A process patent system promotes a more competitive environment and a check on prices, as compared to the monopoly system created through product patents. With the TRIPs agreement for both the product and process patents, it will therefore be possible to apply for patent rights over a product for 20 years, and thereafter, further periods of protection could be applied for the processes by which the product is produced (Hall and Ziedonis, 2001).

However, the member country of the TRIPs agreement can still access to drugs and protect public health under 'compulsory drugs licensing.' According to the Article 31 of TRIPs, the member states 'may use the subject of a patent without the authorization of a right-holder including used by the government' in the public interest. Further, there is also a provision that the 'right-holders shall be paid adequate remuneration taking into account the economic value of the authorization' (Ford, 1999, p.956).

Hence, the governments can grant a license to make copies of patented drugs without the approval of the patent owner and pay a royalty to the latter. This option has been used by countries to restrict the monopoly rights of companies, the patent holders, in the interest of the public good (Lanoszka, 2003). As 'Health' is a state subject, there should be freedom of right to access to medicines without the influence of TRIPs in the third world developing countries (Cullet, 2003). Therefore, "the planning of a national health services and establishment of free access to services at the point of delivery should be a fundamental social right of democratic citizenship" (Porter, 2006, p.1668).

II.9. PROTECTION OF INDIGENOUS AND TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE

It is clear from the above discussion that the implications of IPRs for the Third World countries, and the subsistence farming communities and indigenous population within these countries, are very severe. Not only their knowledge is stolen but also their very survival is threatened without any compensation for their knowledge. The IPR regimes are structured in order to suit the logic developed by the North, which is based on individual rights is alien to the community ownership of indigenous and traditional communities (Mashelkar, 2001).

Some of the characteristics of indigenous knowledge are collective rights and interest, their ecology and environment such as medicinal plants' sacred groves and transmission of the knowledge by oral tradition (Grenier, 1998 and Gadgil and Vartak, 1975). As it is also mentioned earlier that 80 per cent of world population depends on indigenous and knowledge for their primary health care needs and two-thirds of the world's population depends on their community bio-resources.

However, the indigenous knowledge and products from developing countries are exploited and converted to foreign-owned private property; effectively depriving developing countries of the commercialization value of their heritage via exports and value-added processing. For example, through the IPR protection the US has owned the trademark on South Africa's indigenous Rooibos tea, which is becoming increasingly popular worldwide (Ismail and Fakir, 2004).

The indigenous and traditional knowledge and its bio-resources of the indigenous communities should be protected through 'Sui generis system, including their cultural and traditional practices, beliefs, customs, spiritual qualities, knowledge and cultural heritage' (Posey and Dutfield, 1996, p.3). The above studies provide a wide range of discussions on the Indian healing traditions, concepts of traditional healers and medicine and the burning issues and concerns of the rights of indigenous traditional healers in developing countries in general and particularly in India.

1. The term bio-piracy is referred to the unauthorized use of biological resources such as medicinal plants, animals, micro-organisms, genes and indigenous traditional communities' knowledge of biological resources" by big transnational corporations and global pharmaceutical industries. For further detail please See Shiva, V. (1998). Biopiracy: the plunder of nature and knowledge. Green Books.

2. Meaning "Unique" or "of its own kind". 'It is a system, which is unique and does not belong to an existing category of IPR'. For further information please see Swiderska, K. (2007). Protecting traditional knowledge: a framework based on customary laws and bio-cultural heritage. Endogenous Development and Bio-Cultural Diversity