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“Adivasi
children working in the forest all day come back and use MS Word
in our village, Mendha Lekha (in Chandrapur district),” says
Nilesh Heda, who works in the Vidarbha area of Maharashtra, on
people’s biodiversity registers (PBRs).
Four villages in Vidarbha came forward to document their resources
and prepare an electronic database, says Mohan Hirabai Hiralal of
Vrikshamitra, Mendha Lekha. People feel PBRs are important as they
document knowledge that can help them in planning their future
activities and bringing resources within their control, he adds.
Traditional knowledge is the latest buzzword. India is a signatory
to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The Biological
Diversity Act 2002 seeks to protect and regulate India’s natural
resources and traditional knowledge. A three-tiered system of
regulation is envisaged under the Biological Diversity Act, which
consists of the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) at the head,
followed by state-level biodiversity boards and local level
biodiversity management committees.
The draft rules for the Biological Diversity Act 2003, specify
that the NBA take steps to build a date base and to create
information and documentation systems for biological resources and
associated traditional knowledge through bio-diversity registers
and electronic data bases.
Meanwhile, the ministry of environment and forests has asked the
Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES) at the Indian Institute of
Science (IIS), Bangalore, to conduct regional workshops to evolve
and prepare a detailed manual for PBRs. These will be a storehouse
of all biodiversity-related information, practices and knowledge
of a community and its immediate surroundings.
At a workshop in Pune recently, Dr Madhav Gadgil (professor, CES),
who has many years of experience with PBRs, says, “Our proposal
is to set up a computerised database and prepare a biodiversity
information system (BIS) which can be accessed by everyone, even
at the panchayat level. I visualise that each panchayat will
have a PBR and we are looking at a total of 300 PBRs to begin
with, all over India.”
While there is support for the need to document people’s
knowledge and a computerised database and access system, activists
working with adivasis and other marginal groups are
questioning the present Act as well as such documentation. At a
recent meeting on community biodiversity registers in Hyderabad,
Sagari Ramdas of the local non-government organisation, Anthra,
says, “When people, in the first place, do not have the right to
land, where is the question of rights over their resources? About
20 per cent of plants have disappeared due to excess marketing
since their value has been recognised. By putting down people’s
resources on paper, specially if it concerns adivasis, one
would be monetising their resources.”
She also protested against the Biological Diversity Act 2002 and
said it was highly centralised and did not take into account needs
of the people. CR Bijoy of the All India Coordinating Forum for Adivasis
and Indigenous People, Coimbatore, agrees. He says, the Act
reinforces the pre-eminence of the State, which is often an
instrument of bio-prospectors. He feels that PBR is another way of
making money off natural resources. Others feel PBRs promote the
intellectual property rights regime.
Anurag Modi of Shramik Adivasi Sanghatana, which works with adivasis
in Madhya Pradesh, says biodiversity had become a source of
business and the government was promoting this. “Documenting
biodiversity is a conspiracy to steal people’s knowledge.
Whenever knowledge is documented, it tends to go out of people’s
hands. How can you talk of biodiversity registers when people
don’t even have books? Here, a Class ten adivasi boy
cannot even write an application. How will they access such
information?”
In villages like Mahadapur in Yavatmal district (Maharashtra),
where there is no electricity and telephone, Ajay and Yogini Dolke
of Srijan, say, “We want to use PBRs as a tool to help gain
access over forest produce. Once we know the biodiversity around
us, we can limit its use and plan accordingly. We work with Kolam adivasis,
and most of the literate people leave. There is no school beyond
the fourth class. In this scenario, using computers is out of the
question. People would feel happier with a register they can see
(in concrete terms) and identify.”
But Dr Gadgil thinks otherwise. “We have the responsibility to
educate people on the implications of sharing their data and
knowledge with the world. The decision has to be an informed one.
I feel the information can be adapted for use by illiterate people
as well. Illiterate women in Madurai are using computers. The way
the data is presented has to be innovative – it can use icons,
use local languages and dialects.”
As things stand, the final decision on PBRs will be taken by the
NBA once it is constituted.
Ashish Kothari of Kalpavriksh, Pune, says, “If the data is only
computerised, then it will be a challenge for communities not only
to access the information but also to protect it. Communities must
have the liberty to choose what information they want to collect
and how they want to collect, store and share it. Another key
question is – how can this information be protected against
misuse, especially against piracy?”
The Andhra Pradesh Coalition in Defence of Diversity, a network of
140 civil society groups spread across 23 districts has been
taking steps to publicise the rich agri-biodiverity in the state.
The Coalition started by creating what they prefer to call
community biodiversity registers or CBR, in every mandal (administrative
unit). In two years’ time, more than 600 CBR have been prepared.
People have found their own ways of collecting and storing the
information in the form of drawings, books or icons. The
information is shared among communities in the form of district
level exhibitions, fairs and mobile biodiversity yatras
across villages. Regarding the PBRs however, PV Satheesh, convenor
of the Coalition, fears that communities would take a back seat.
The central question however, is whether documenting the knowledge
will help communities gain rights over resources. Is knowledge
being lost because it is not documented or is it because of
competition from other practices?
It is vital that people have the right to make decisions on the
use of their resources, as a prelude to preparing registers.
Knowledge is power but that power cannot go into the hands of the
already powerful. That would defeat the very spirit of the
Convention on Biological Diversity.
Courtesy: Women’s
Feature Service
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