Title: Valuing local knowledge
Description: In Valuing Local Knowledge experts from around the world examine an innovative proposal to promote both cultural survival and biological conservation: treating cultural and indigenous knowledge as a form of intellectual property.

Currently the focus of a heated debate among indigenous peoples, human rights advocates, crop breeders, pharmaceutical companies, conservationists, social scientists, and lawyers, the proposal would allow impoverished people in biologically rich areas to realize an economic return from resources under their care. Monetary compensation could both validate their knowledge and provide them with an equitable reward for sharing it, thereby compensating biological stewardship and encouraging conservation.

Valuing Local Knowledge presents case studies of programs that recognize indigenous rights, and it brings direct experience to bear on the international debate over intellectual property, conservation, and indigenous rights.
Subjects: Ethnoscience, Sustainable development, Philosophy, Conservation of natural resources, Economic conditions, Environmental policy, Indigenous peoples, Human ecology, Economic aspects, Biological diversity, Forests and forestry, tropics, Forest ecology, Forest conservation, Biodiversity, Forests and forestry, Forest management, Geistiges Eigentum, Indigenes Volk, Ökologie, Recht van de intellectuele eigendom, Inheemse volken, Intellectual property, Écologie humaine, Philosophie, Ethnosciences, Autochtones, Conditions économiques, Biodiversité, Conservation des ressources naturelles, Autochtone, Propriété intellectuelle et industrielle, Congrès, Étude de cas, Protection, CONFERENCES, Développement durable, Environnement, Politique gouvernementale, Aspect économique, Ethnophilosophy, Ethnobotany