Eurograd message

                ** apologies for cross-posting **

Hope you can join us for the second lecture in this series. Wynberg and
Laird have been producing definitional work in the area for decades. This
will be a fascinating opportunity to see what they think is next. Should be
of value to anyone with research interests in law, biodiversity,
bioeconomy, indiginous knowledge, human rights, environmental humanities,
ethnobiology, history and philosophy of science, and development. If you
can't join us live, you can register to receive a notification when the
recording is ready.



Upcoming People, Plants and the Law lecture
Having trouble viewing this email? View Online

[image: Rachel and Sarah] *Rachel Wynberg (University of Cape Town) and Dr.
Sarah Laird (University of Kent), Rethinking biodiversity-based economies
for justice and conservation*

Access and benefit sharing (ABS) is a policy approach that links access to
genetic resources and traditional knowledge to the sharing of monetary and
non-monetary benefits. It first found expression in the 1992 UN Convention
on Biological Diversity (CBD), but is also part of the International Treaty
for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), the World
Health Organization’s Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework (PIP), and
the Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It spans a wide range of
sectors and issues, including equity in scientific research, conservation
of biodiversity, and support for traditional knowledge and Indigenous and
local stewards of biodiversity.

Multiple laws and policies are now in place across the world to implement
ABS. While this might signal progress, questions remain about their
efficacy. Typically, these laws and associated benefit-sharing agreements
serve as legal compliance mechanisms that justify a ‘business as usual’
approach without fundamentally changing power relations or economic
disparities. Moreover, while science and technology have transformed
dramatically over the lifetime of ABS, including an exponential increase in
the use of genetic sequence data – or digital sequence information (DSI) -
ABS approaches have remained largely static and have narrowed to a
transactional effort to channel financial benefits, with few addressing the
relationship between benefit sharing, social justice, poverty alleviation,
and biodiversity conservation. Rather than enhance scientific collaboration
and capacity building, such policy efforts have often had a restrictive
effect.

Despite a substantial investment of funding, capacity and resources, and a
plethora of laws and studies, ABS has met with surprisingly little analysis
as an approach to promote equity in science, remedy past and current
injustices, and conserve biodiversity. It also remains fixed in pro-growth
strategies to achieve conservation and development that are now well
recognised to have failed. Our presentation aims to take a step back, and
to think anew about models of development that underpin ABS and more
transformative approaches to achieve justice and conservation in
biodiversity-based economies. We will address the limitations of “benefit
sharing” that does not include paying attention to power imbalances and
inequities - and ask how we can think in more innovative ways about
paradigms that de-emphasize scale and global markets, measure impact
differently, and enable long-overdue recognition for other ways of knowing
and being. We believe there is a great deal that has been learned over the
years on ABS, biotrade and non-timber forest products, equitable research
partnerships and commercialization, conservation and in other areas. But
moving forward, laws must be more strategic, and they must accommodate
vastly complex social, cultural, economic, and ecological conditions, as
well as a dramatically changing world – in science and technology,
business, severely threatened biodiversity, and in culture and society.

*Date:* Tuesday 12 November 2024
*Time:* 5-6pm AEST / 6-7pm AEDT / Time in your location

*Venue: *Zoom


If you can't join us live, please register to receive a notification when
the recording is available.
Register here

Rachel Wynberg is a Professor in the Department of Environmental and
Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town in South Africa where
she holds a government-funded Research Chair focused on Environmental and
Social Dimensions of the Bio-economy. With a background in both the natural
and social sciences, she has a strong interest in inter- and trans
disciplinarity and policy engagement across the humanities, arts and
sciences. Her research spans topics relating to just, ethical and
biodiverse bio-economies; seeds, farmers’ rights and agrobiodiversity;
knowledge politics; agroecology and food sovereignty; the governance of
wild species; and emerging technologies and equity in science.

Dr. Sarah A. Laird is a forester and ethnobiologist by training. Her
interests cover a range of inter-related issues, including forest-based
traditional knowledge and livelihoods, biodiversity policy, emerging
technologies, and the ethical and conservation dimensions of the commercial
use of biodiversity. Since the 1990s, Sarah has collaborated with
communities around Mt Cameroon on ethnobiological research and knowledge
exchange programs to support and conserve threatened traditional management
practices and cultural forests. Her current policy work includes that on
the ethical and conservation implications of transformative scientific and
technological advances, particularly within the framework of the Convention
on Biological Diversity.

Rachel Wynberg and Sarah Laird presently co-direct a process of
"rethinking" the relationship between conservation and equity, and the
biodiversity-based economy, including access and benefit-sharing.
https://rethinking-abs.org/


About the People, Plants and the Law Online Lecture Series

The People, Plants, and the Law online lecture series

explores
the legal and lively entanglements of human and botanical worlds.

Today people engage with and relate to plants in diverse and sometimes
divergent ways. Seeds—and the plants that they produce—may be receptacles
of memory, sacred forms of sustenance, or sites of resistance in struggles
over food sovereignty. Simultaneously, they may be repositories of gene
sequences, Indigenous knowledge, bulk commodities, or key components of
economic development projects and food security programs.

This lecture series explores the special role of the law in shaping these
different engagements, whether in farmers’ fields, scientific laboratories,
international markets, or elsewhere.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Berris Charnley
.
This lecture series is a partnership between The University of Queensland,
The ARC Laureate Project Harnessing Intellectual Property to Build Food
Security, The ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant  Success in Nature &
Agriculture, and The ARC Uniquely Australian Foods Training Centre.

[image: 3699284.png]


[image: 3471098.jpg]


[image: 3699288.png]


*www.plantsuccess.org/people-plants-and-the-law/*

The organisers of the People Plants and the Law lecture series acknowledge
the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and their continuing
connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past, present
and emerging.

You received this email because you have attended a People Plants and the
Law lecture in the past, or because a member of our research group listed
you as potentially interested in these lectures. To unsubscribe from this
mailing list, please use the link below. This will not unsubscribe you from
other Plant Success communications.

This email was sent by Plant Success, ARC CoE for Plant Success in Nature
and Agriculture, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072,
Australia to berrischarnley28@gmail.com


Unsubscribe




_______________________________________________
EASST's Eurograd mailing list
Eurograd (at) lists.easst.net
Unsubscribe or edit subscription options: http://lists.easst.net/listinfo.cgi/eurograd-easst.net

Meet us via https://twitter.com/STSeasst

Report abuses of this list to Eurograd-owner@lists.easst.net