The Sub-surface Belongs to the State

Cultural rights over biological resources and the intellectual property associated with knowing how to use them is a complex topic, Pedro admits. It is difficult in Peru, where private ownership of land, as in most of Latin America, refers only to the land surface. The state owns all resources – trees, oil, minerals – on or under the surface. Global trade agreements respect exclusive control over products and intellectual property with patents and royalty agreements. Such monopolistic control is totally alien to people who think in collective terms.

Rather than deal with the subject in an isolated fashion, Pedro believes the best way to protect indigenous peoples' intellectual property rights is to make the subject part of the broader strategy to reaffirm their territorial rights. In the early 1970s, the government acknowledged that certain territories "belonged" to native peoples, but it did not begin to give title to the lands until 10 years later. Now, about one-third of the land claimed by native peoples is theirs by legal title.

Learning to Negotiate in the Debating Arena

"The key to defense is learning how to negotiate," Pedro contends. "They have to be prepared to enter the debate arena and not simply count on experts allied with the indigenous cause." For native peoples, land is the source of their identity, sustenance and a way of life that has continued for thousands of years. More than monetary compensation, indigenous peoples want control over their territories and their resources.

"A people without land is a people with no life," says Edwin Vasquez, an Ashanika and vice president of AIDESEP. "No government has ever consulted with indigenous peoples prior to giving others the right to enter our lands. We just wake up in the morning and there they are."

Negotiation means becoming familiar with international legislation that broadly recognizes indigenous cultural rights and national legislation which weakens those rights, and learning to manage the vocabulary and concepts used by government and corporate officials when discussing technical subjects. For people who may never have seen a car or television, this is a major leap into a another reality.

A Tree for a Song

"It's a very serious problem," Pedro says. "Loggers ask a [native] man to cut down a tree or two. For the man that's easy. He accepts the $100 and doesn't realize the tree is resold for $1,000." The man is also unaware of the international accord Peru has signed forbidding the export of tropical hardwoods except from managed forests, beginning next year.

As a result of the workshops, indigenous communities in the Pucallpa area decided to call for a two-year moratorium on cutting while they considered ways to manage their forest resources. And, said Pedro with a smile, "They also reported 64 illegal loggers to the local authorities. They're watching every move those loggers make."

'Migrations' Allow Land Replenishment

Over the past three years, the nine-member Racimos team has worked intensively with 12 indigenous organizations representing seven ethnic groups (or communities, as they are known in Peru) near the town of San Lorenzo, in the northern jungle. One outcome of the workshops was a map overlay of community territories to show resources such as rivers, streams, lakes and valleys and the migratory corridors used by wildlife. The maps also show how communities use the land, migrating over a large area to hunt, fish, reside for a while or worship, providing an opportunity for resources to replenish. Native migratory habits have often been interpreted by others, including the government, as "abandoning" their land, which invites appropriation.

The maps also give people a sense of what resources can be developed commercially in a sustainable way. Pedro says the maps have begun to stimulate ways of thinking about the potential for eco- or ethnic-tourism.

Pinning Hopes for the Future on the Women

San Lorenzo's indigenous federations have shown the greatest interest in bio-piracy issues. For solutions, Pedro has his hopes pinned on women.

"The jungle's biodiversity is well known", he says, but "domestic diversity has remained untouched." Eyes alight, Pedro describes "Mi Chacra" (My Farm), a project conceived by native women to revitalize the ancestral practice of growing hundreds of plant species, sometimes as many as 700 or 750, in a half-hectare (about one and one quarter acres) home garden for food and medicinal remedies. The practice has steadily eroded as national education ignored indigenous culture in favor of "modern" ways, including the use of over-the-counter medicines.

A concentration of that many plant species "is worth more than five hectares of corn," Pedro gloats, alluding to the male farmers' tendency to stick to one crop for commercial purposes. He sees household "farming" as one way to reconcile traditional cultural practice with the western world's notion of protecting intellectual property rights. Plant certification is internationally recognized as a form of patent.

The reconciliation hasn't happened yet. "Indigenous people have to come up with a proposal on their own," he says.

Indigenous Women as 'Super Farmers'

"You have to show people that they're not poor, that they have something to contribute," Pedro says, explaining how women again have begun to see themselves as "super farmers," proud to know 18 different varieties of a plant that has multiple uses in a native household. Seeds of the piri-piri shrub are used as a female contraceptive or, in combination with ginger root, to help a woman become pregnant. Pedro's Aguaruna wife says piri-piri also relieves intestinal and stomach discomfort and is used as a blood coagulant. The ungarahui palm seed provides oil and it can be brewed into teas used to relieve headaches; its leaves provide basket material. When the tree is felled, the trunk offers up hearts of palm as well as a tasty "zuri," a worm that goes into the cooking pot.

"The women have amazing ideas," Pedro continues, enthusiastically describing his mother-in-law's garden which contains 72 kinds of yucca for manioc, flours and starches used for baking. Plant flours and marmalades concocted from jungle fruits are beginning to appear in San Lorenzo's "Nostalgia Markets" that appeal to tourists. Native women have convinced the government's food assistance program to distribute jungle products such as bananas and dried fish rather than milk, which spoils without refrigeration. The program is following the suggestion, not just in their area, but nationally.

Slowly Learning to Do Business

Although native communities have begun to think of ways to use resources commercially, "We're going slowly on the business front," Pedro says, "until people are well prepared in business practices." If they are not, "that can be held against them."

Training sessions, for instance, emphasize bookkeeping essentials and tax payments, another concept alien to indigenous thinking. "We also place a strong emphasis on ethics," Pedro says, explaining that indigenous people are recovering from a crisis that began 25 years ago when indigenous people "were in vogue," and external funding was plentiful but improperly administered. "If corruption appears, the government can use that against them."

Government regulations that are routine to urban dwellers often present major problems to indigenous communities which may be located several days from a town with a bank or postal service. With Racimos' help, indigenous communities have petitioned the tax authority to be allowed to make tax payments quarterly or even yearly, rather than every month, as required.