Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the distinctive claims of indigenous groups extends in practice. For the
San people in particular, to what extent has the process and outcome of
negotiation that puts substance onto the bones of what is required by
the CBD been able to satisfy their expectations of what justice should
constitute? And what does this reveal about the values and understand-
ing that different actors bring to the debate?
The San Views of the Benefi t-Sharing Agreement
The story of Hoodia is probably one of the most famous bioprospecting
case studies. It fi rst caught worldwide attention when a British newspa-
per reporting on Hoodia as a new appetite suppressant mentioned the
extinction of the San. Very quickly the case attracted a fair amount of
negative publicity, which eventually sparked, in 2001, the start of benefi t-
sharing negotiations between the San and South Africa's Council for
Scientifi c and Industrial Research (CSIR)—which had registered a patent
in 1996 without any attempt at obtaining prior informed consent from
the San. Originally hunter-gatherers, the San have lost out (often
violently) to successive groups of pastoralists and agriculturalists. Scat-
tered around the Kalahari basin, surviving communities are now among
the most marginalized and stigmatized in their respective countries.
The benefi t-sharing agreement made by the San with CSIR regarding the
commercialization of the Hoodia plant, is detailed in table 6.1.
3
Wynberg (2004a, 241) laments the absence of prior informed consent
from the holders of traditional knowledge (the San), and she poses fun-
damental questions such as
Who qualifi es as the rightful community or group from whom consent should
be obtained? Can knowledge be attributed to a single group or individual? Is the
privatisation of traditional knowledge through intellectual property rights not
contrary to the belief of many communities that such knowledge is collectively
held, for the benefi t of the broader community? Can bioprospecting in fact
deliver development benefi ts and social justice?
To address these concerns, fi eldwork was carried out in three San com-
munities in Namibia (Omatako, Vergenoeg, and Blouberg) and one San
community in South Africa (Andriesvale) in the period July-October
2004. The communities were selected to capture some of the diversity of
circumstances in which the San may fi nd themselves, including culture,
geography, the situation with regard to land rights, and general socioeco-
nomic conditions. The San's perceptions of the Hoodia benefi t-sharing
agreement were collected through the use of participant observation, life
stories, and over 100 informal and semistructured interviews.
