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Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Development

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Traditional Knowledge and
Sustainable Development
DRAFT FOR DISCUSSION

Ashish Kothari

September 2007
© 2007 International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)

Published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development

The International Institute for Sustainable Development contributes to sustainable

development by advancing policy recommendations on international trade and investment,
economic policy, climate change, measurement and assessment, and natural resources
management. Through the Internet, we report on international negotiations and share
knowledge gained through collaborative projects with global partners, resulting in more
rigorous research, capacity building in developing countries and better dialogue between
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IISD’s vision is better living for all—sustainably; its mission is to champion innovation,
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Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Development

By Ashish Kothari
September 2007
Table of Contents
Table of Contents ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3
Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4
The Terms -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4
The Relevance of Traditional Knowledge to Human Welfare and Development -------------- 5
The Erosion of Traditional Knowledge---------------------------------------------------------------- 7
Reviving, Encouraging, Using TK ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 8
References ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 11

Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Development – DRAFT 3

Introduction
Humanity’s troubled relationship with the earth has raised a series of questions on how to
change our behaviour. How can we live more sustainably, and with greater sensitivity
towards our fellow creatures? How should our economic activities be altered, to reduce and
eliminate our negative impacts on the environment? Do we have with us the necessary
wisdom and knowledge to make this happen?

Increasingly, it is being realized that answers to these questions will have to come from a
variety of sources. While earlier it was thought that modern science and technology will
provide the answers, it is now more than ever clear that traditional knowledge also has
critical insights and practices to offer….some say even more so than modern science, if the
much longer history of responsible use that traditional peoples have demonstrated is to be
taken as an indicator.

This paper will examine the claim that traditional knowledge is critically relevant to the
human quest for sustainable living on earth. It starts by examining the concepts of
“traditional knowledge” (TK) and “sustainable development” (SD). It goes on to show the
essential links between the two and contributions of TK to various sectors of human welfare
and development. It then looks briefly at the loss of TK, and ways to revive or maintain it
within the context of the overall need for securing the integrity of its holders. This paper
does not deal in any detail with the protection of TK in the face of current intellectual
property rights regimes, as this is an issue that has been adequately debated and discussed in
academic and popular literature around the world.

The Terms
“Traditional knowledge” and “sustainable development” are contested terms, with widely
varying definitions and interpretations. In this paper I do not attempt to go into these
contestations, but only briefly provide some broad idea of the terms to set the background
for the rest of the paper.

Traditional knowledge (TK) (or other co-terminous terms such as indigenous

knowledge, and local knowledge) generally refer to the long-standing information,
wisdom, traditions and practices of certain indigenous peoples or local communities. In
many cases, traditional knowledge has been orally passed for generations from person to
person. Some forms of traditional knowledge are expressed through stories, legends,
folklore, rituals, songs, art, and even laws. Other forms of traditional knowledge are often
expressed through different means. One distinction that is often made between TK and
modern or “western” knowledge is that unlike the latter, TK does not separate “secular” or
“rational” knowledge from spiritual knowledge, intuitions, and wisdom. It is often
embedded in a cosmology, and the distinction between “intangible” knowledge and physical
things is often blurred. Indeed, holders of TK often claim that their knowledge cannot be
divorced from the natural and cultural context within which it has arisen, including their
traditional lands and resources, and their kinship and community relations.

Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Development – DRAFT 4

It is important to emphasize that TK is not, as often perceived, a static phenomenon, but
one that is constantly evolving with changes in the internal and external environment of the
community concerned.

The term “sustainable development” (SD) first came to vogue in the report of the World
Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future. It was here defined as
development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs”. Many limitations of this definition have been
pointed out, including that it is predominantly anthropomorphic (focusing only on how
development should sustain human needs, and not considering the needs of other species),
that it does not adequately take equity into account, and that it is in this form not possible to
operationalize. A more detailed definition is that it is a collection of methods to create and
sustain development which seeks to relieve poverty, create equitable standards of living,
satisfy the basic needs of all peoples, and establish sustainable political practices, while
ensuring that there are no irreversible damages to natural resources and nature. Whatever the
definitions, countries and communities realize that SD can be operationalized only through a
set of indicators and criteria for assessing the impact of development processes and projects.
Following up from a number of international conferences and treaties on the subject, several
countries have begun to use these to gauge whether they are on the path of sustainability
(e.g., for United Kingdom, see http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk).

The Relevance of Traditional Knowledge to Human Welfare

and Development
The realization that TK has not become redundant in today’s world, is increasingly
widespread. The Rio Declaration, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the documents
coming out of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, and a whole host of other
international instruments and forums have emphasized the current (and future) relevance of
TK. Institutions such as the World Intellectual Property Organisation, the International
Labour Organization (especially Convention 169), the Food and Agricultural Organization,
the World Health Organization, UNESCO, UNEP, UNDP, the UN Commission on
Human Rights, and a number of other international organizations have similarly given it
importance.

The World Conference on Science, organized by UNESCO and the International Council
for Science (ICSU), in its Declaration on Science and the Use of Scientific Knowledge,
explicitly recognized the importance of TK and the need to respect and encourage its use for
various forms of human endeavour (ICSU 2002).

The UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples, endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council in

June 2006 with a recommendation for the UN General Assembly to adopt it
(http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/indigenous/declaration.htm), recognizes “that
respect for indigenous knowledge, cultures and traditional practices contributes to
sustainable and equitable development and proper management of the environment.”

It is particularly instructive that the United Nations Committee on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD), which essentially deals with international economic relations, has also given TK

Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Development – DRAFT 5

considerable importance. Since 2000 when its member States decided to address the issue of
the use and protection of TK, it has promoted work on the subject, including bringing
together 250 experts from 80 countries in October-November 2000, to deliberate on the
subject. The book coming out of that has a series of articles dealing with diverse aspects of
the role of TK in human welfare and sustainable development (Twarog and Kapoor 2004).

Most commonly accepted is the role of TK in the “traditional” or primary sectors of the
economy: agriculture and pastoralism, forestry, fisheries, water, and products made from
natural resources such as crafts, furniture, housing, and so on (Posey 1999). Given the fact
that a majority of the world’s population remain dependent on these sectors for their
survival and livelihoods, and for various aspects of shelter, the contribution that TK makes
and can continue to make towards sustaining billions of people is quite clear (though not
necessarily acted upon in policies and programmes of most countries).

However, the role of TK in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy too is
becoming clearer. A whole range of industrial products are dependent on or use TK in
varying ways. This is true for sectors like textiles, pharmaceuticals, household good, and so
on. Health care, through all systems of medicine, is to varying degrees of extent dependent
on TK, or on combinations of TK and modern knowledge. According to the World Health
Organization (WHO), the majority of the world’s population (in areas like Africa, up to 80
per cent of the population) is dependent for varying degrees on medicinal plants through
traditional health care systems (www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs134/en/).
Numerous studies have demonstrated the contribution that TK also makes to the modern
pharmaceutical industry and modern health care, a contribution that may only increase as
people in the western world (including westernized people in the “developing” countries)
become more conscious of plant-based cures. The WHO estimates that 25 per cent of
modern medicines are made from plants first used traditionally.

Services like food distribution, education, climate forecasting and warning, and community
care also continue to be performed through institutions using traditional means, and in some
cases even modern institutions of the government or corporate sector are discovering the
value of this. In a Food for Work programme in Nepal, significant losses of food in the
distribution system were reduced when the programme switched to the use of local
technologies and networks (Gorjestani 2004). Rates of maternal mortality at childbirth were
reduced significantly when traditional institutions (including the traditional birth attendant)
were used in combination with modern communications (Musake 1999, cited in Gorjestani
2004).

The trade sector too has seen a significant and continuing contribution of TK related
products and services, as recognized by institutions such as UNCTAD (Twarog and Kapoor
2004).

Though much more recent, there is now a growing recognition of the role that TK could
play in humanity’s response to the gravest threat it now faces: climate change. The fact that
communities have for centuries and millennia adjusted their behaviour and strategies and
knowledge systems to changes in their surrounds, is central to this realization. Communities
adjust their agriculture/pastoralism/fishing and hunting-gathering to subtle or not-so-subtle
changes in climate, to threats from other communities or invasions, to disease and

Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Development – DRAFT 6

epidemics, and so on. Traditional systems appear to be static, but they are indeed dynamic in
making such adjustments. Such adaptability could be a key factor in the response that we
give as a species, to the impacts of climate change….and TK’s role in all the sectors named
above could provide the alternatives needed to build towards a more sustainable way of
dealing with our atmosphere. As an example of the potential of this (as yet considerably
under-utilized), researchers, government agencies, and indigenous peoples of Canada are
collaborating in research and action related to climate change that brings together TK and
modern knowledge (see http://www.itk.ca/environment/climate-change-index.php; and
Birkes and Jolly 2001). Parties to the CBD are also beginning to highlight this issue, as
pointed out by its Executive Secretary Ahmed Djoghlaf at the “International Expert Seminar
on Indicators Relevant to Indigenous Peoples, the Convention on Biological Diversity and
the MDGs” (Banaue, Ifugao, Philippines, 5 March 2007) (http://
www.biodiv.org/doc/speech/2007/sp-2007-03-05-ind-en.doc).

A key scientific question that faces us today is: how does one assess unsustainability? What
indicators and criteria and methods can be used for this? Here too, TK has a vital role, for
traditional peoples and communities have used a wide range of their own indicators and
methods to get an idea of sustainability. Water flows, the presence/absence or
appearance/disappearance of certain species, the behaviour of domestic or wild animals, and
other kinds of changes in their surrounds are used in myriad sophisticated ways to learn
about ecological changes that may be detrimental or beneficial.).

The Erosion of Traditional Knowledge

More than ever before, TK faces serious levels of erosion. As the peoples and communities
holding TK themselves face a range of threats from outright annihilation to “assimilation”
into “mainstream” society, the knowledge they hold also slips away. A clear and alarming
indicator is the threat to languages, with some scholars estimating that half of the around
6,000 languages spoken today may become extinct by 2050 or 2100
(http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_language; http://www.ogmios.org/manifesto.htm;
http://www.wholeearthmag.com/ArticleBin/325.html#top). A language (oral or written) is not
only a means of communication between members of a people or community, it also
contains within it the essence of considerable information and knowledge and wisdom of the
people or community. Its loss is therefore a loss of TK. The threat is greatest in the case of
TK that has passed down and evolved orally, since it disappears with every generation that
has not been able to hand it down to the next one.

Across the world, as one model of modern education and means of mass communication
spread, newer generations of traditional peoples are simply not imbibing TK in way that
their parents or ancestors did. As growing demand for natural resources from a greedy global
economy touches every community, elements of TK that managed to maintain sustainable
levels of harvest become redundant or sidelined, and soon forgotten. Most of all, as the
people in such communities themselves get amalgamated into urban-industrial sectors, they
no longer have a need for TK….at least not for a while till many of them find themselves
cast out of the economy and adrift, but now without even their TK or without any natural
resources to fall back on.

Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Development – DRAFT 7

Reviving, Encouraging, Using TK
The realization of TK’s importance to SD, and growing concern about its continued erosion,
have prompted a number of countries to adopt policies and programmes recognising and
promoting it. International agencies, NGOs, and indigenous peoples or local communities
themselves, have also initiated a number of measures.

In Uganda, the National Council of Science and Technology has initiated a process to
highlight the importance of TK in agricultural and health sectors. A national workshop on
the topic resulted in a Kampala Declaration on Indigenous Knowledge for Sustainable
Development, and steps to integrate TK into the country’s Poverty Eradication Action Plan
and other official processes (Gorjestani 2004). In the Philippines, a law relevant to the
protection of TK has been promulgated, though implementation lags
(http://www.grain.org/brl/?docid=767&lawid=1469). In India, the Biological Diversity Act
contains a framework provision for TK protection, but the government has been dragging
its feet in making this provision operational (Apte 2006). In many countries, the government
and/or NGOs are helping promote TK-based products and services, including forest and
agricultural products, herbal medicines, cultural heritage or traditional health-based tourism,
ecotourism, and handicrafts.

Some international agencies have also proposed or adopted principles for the use of TK in
relation to SD. The International Council of Science and UNESCO, for instance, propose
the following principles (ICSU 2002):

• Ensure the full and effective participation of traditional knowledge holders during all
stages of elaboration of sustainable development policies, plans and programs,
alongside the scientific and technological community;
• Acknowledge and respect the social and cultural bases, including the authority
structures within which traditional knowledge is embedded;
• Recognize the rights of traditional people to own, regulate access and share benefits
of their unique sets of knowledge, resources and products
• Ensure that traditional knowledge holders are fully informed of potential
partnerships and that these are only entered into with prior informed consent;
• Promote models for environmental and sustainable governance that incorporate
principles of genuine partnership and collaboration between scientific and traditional
knowledge;
• Promote training to better equip young scientists and indigenous people to carry out
research on traditional knowledge.

Considerable discussion and a number of resolutions under the CBD have also dealt with
TK. These related to both its role in conservation and development, as also issues regarding
its protection. Article 8j of the CBD mandates that countries “respect, preserve and maintain
knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying
traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity
and promote their wider application with the approval and involvement of the holders of
such knowledge, innovations and practices and encourage the equitable sharing of the
benefits arising from the utilization of such knowledge, innovations and practices”. How

Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Development – DRAFT 8

precisely this is to be done, has been the subject of negotiations and discussions at several
sessions of the CBD Conference of Parties as also its various sub-groups. One of the arenas
where this discussion is on-going are the negotiations relating to the “access and benefit-
sharing” provisions. The CBD-generated “Bonn Guidelines on Access to Genetic Resources
and Fair and Equitable Sharing of the Benefits Arising Out of Their Utilization”
(http://www.biodiv.org/decisions/default.aspx?m=cop-06&d=24), specify the following:
“Respecting established legal rights of indigenous and local communities associated with the
genetic resources being accessed or where traditional knowledge associated with these
genetic resources is being accessed, the prior informed consent of indigenous and local
communities and the approval and involvement of the holders of traditional knowledge,
innovations and practices should be obtained, in accordance with their traditional practices,
national access policies and subject to domestic laws.”

UNCTAD’s Biotrade initiative has been developing principles and tools in relation to “those
activities of collection, production, transformation, and commercialization of goods and
services derived from native biodiversity under the criteria of environmental, social and
economic sustainability.” (http://www.biotrade.org/Intro/bti.htm). An informal meeting of
experts in 2006 came up with some objectives and elements of BioTrade guidelines on
benefit-sharing, which includes transparency, adequate compensation and other benefits
(monetary and non-monetary), recognition of TK, and empowerment of local communities
to handle negotiations and implementation of benefit-sharing arrangements
(http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2006/abs_btfp_biotrade.pdf).

The fear that a number of indigenous and local communities have, however, is that even
well-meaning initiatives such as the ones under CBD and UNCTAD, may encourage the
kind of commercialization of life and knowledge that may be unacceptable. While in theory
such processes are open to non-monetary benefit-sharing including political empowerment,
in practice, most negotiations may restrict themselves to monetary transfers. To quote the
International Indian Treaty Council (IITC): “For us, “trade” is an equitable exchange
relationship between individuals, communities, or peoples, but we point out that there are
aspects of material or immaterial elements of the indigenous peoples that under no condition
--- we repeat, under no condition --- can be sold or exchanged, and we also ask that this be
respected.” (Ibarra 2004). Moreover, indigenous peoples have pointed out that Bonn
Guidelines and other ABS documents or recommendations emanating from CBD and other
international forums, are incomplete without the recognition of a number of rights: to self-
determination, to their territories and resources (including restitution of resources taken
away in the past and kept in international or national gene banks or museums), to their
knowledge and practices, to prior informed consent, and others
(http://ipcb.org/pipermail/ipcb-net_ipcb.org/2006-February/000043.html). Without such
recognition, they say, the principle of “equitable benefit-sharing” is toothless.

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in June 2006 by the UN
Human Rights Council (but continuing to struggle to find adoption by the UN General
Assembly), stresses that: “1. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect
and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions,
as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human
and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral
traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts.

Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Development – DRAFT 9

They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property
over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions; 2. In
conjunction with indigenous peoples, States shall take effective measures to recognize and
protect the exercise of these rights.”

Traditional peoples themselves, or sensitive scholars and NGOs who have worked amongst
such peoples, have articulated a number of visions and practical measures for sustaining TK
(see for instance, Posey and Dutfield 1996, GRAIN 1995 and GRAIN 2004, Singh 1998).
Most of these reject the view that conventional intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes can
help protect or promote TK, and instead assert that what is needed a holistic system that
includes rights and responsibilities to natural resources, knowledge, and culture. A crucial
message contained in these approaches, one that even the sensitive modern worldview often
misses out on, is that TK is not something that can be saved in isolation of its holders. It is
so integrally connected to the way of life of the traditional peoples themselves, that it only
makes sense in situ, when used and evolved by such peoples. Documenting TK through
ethnobiology and other means of study may be important, and may contribute to its
continuation, but this can never substitute for the live propagation and evolution of the
knowledge through its holders themselves. As the IITC states: “we believe that in order to
the protect the light, one should not only protect the light bulb; it is also necessary to protect
the cables that transport the power and, above all, to protect the source that produces or
generates said power.” (Ibarra 2004).

Indeed in the absence of the central involvement of the knowledge-holders, documentation

of TK could become a threat by opening it up to biopiracy. In India, for instance, the move
to document TK through Peoples Biodiversity Registers (or Community Biodiversity
Registers) is rapidly gaining ground, but a number of community organizations and NGOs
have raised concerns about whether it could open up even oral TK to piracy if the
PBRs/CBRs are not given adequate protection. On the other hand in cases where it is being
carried out under the control of communities themselves, it is acknowledged to benefit them
in various ways including the revitalization of knowledge that was otherwise dying out.

A corollary to this is that TK can be meaningfully used and propagated only if the natural
and physical environment in which it has evolved, is sustained. A forest-dwelling community
that has developed a range of TK elements relevant to living with the forest, may remain a
community in many senses of the word even if the forest were to disappear or if it were to
be alienated from such forest, but it would lose its forest related TK as surely as it would if
the community itself was to disintegrate. Environmental movements and the movements for
the survival of indigenous peoples and local communities are therefore natural
allies.….though the two do not always realize it and are sometimes at loggerheads due to
certain narrow visions of environmentalism or human rights.

Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Development – DRAFT 10

 References
Apte, T. 2006. A Simple Guide to Intellectual Property Rights, Biodiversity and Traditional Knowledge.
Kalpavriksh, GRAIN, and IIED, Pune/Delhi.
Berkes, F. and D. Jolly. 2001. Adapting to climate change: social-ecological resilience in a
Canadian western Arctic community. Conservation Ecology 5(2): 18. [online] URL:
http://www.consecol.org/vol5/iss2/art18/
Gorjestani, N. 2004. Indigenous knowledge for development: Opportunities and challenges.
In Twarog and Kapoor, op. cit.
GRAIN. 1995. Towards a Biodiversity Community Rights Regime. Seedling, October 1995
(www.grain.org/seedling/?id=5).
GRAIN. 2004. Freedom from IPR: Towards a convergence of movements. Seedling, October
2004 (www.grain.org/seedling/?id=301).
Ibarra, M. 2004. Statement by the International Indian Treaty Council. In Twarog and
Kapoor, op.cit.
ICSU. 2002. Science, Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Development. ICSU Series on Science
for Sustainable Development No. 4. International Council for Science, Paris.
Musake, M. 1999. The challenge and opportunities of information and communication
technologies in the health sector. Paper prepared for the African Development
Forum 1999, Makerere University, Kampala.
Singh Nijar, G. 1998. Community intellectual rights protect indigenous knowledge.
Biotechnology and Development Monitor, No. 36, p. 11-12.
Posey, D (ed). 1999. Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity. United Nations Environment
Programme, Nairobi, and Intermediate Technology Publications, London.
Posey, D. and Dutfield, G. 1996. Beyond Intellectual Property: Towards Traditional Resource Rights
for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. International Development Research
Centre, Ottawa.
Twarog, S. And Kapoor, P. (Eds.). 2004. Protecting and Promoting Traditional Knowledge: Systems,
National Experiences and International Dimensions. United Nations Conference on Trade
and Development. Document No, United Nations, Geneva.
UNCTAD/DITC/TED/10.
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Oxford University Press.

Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Development – DRAFT 11

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