ICCA Kenya Committee hosts Coast Meeting

From December 9-10th the ICCA Committee in Kenya hosted a multi-stakeholder meeting in Ukunda along the Kenya coast. The objective of the meeting was to initiate discussions on the idea of ICCAs amongst a wide range of community members involved in local conservation initiatives. Participants of the meeting included representatives from conservancies, rangelands, Community Forest Associations (CFAs), Kayas (sacred forests) and Beach Management Units (BMUs) from all along the coastal region. As a member of the ICCA Committee in Kenya, Natural Justice was involved in the planning and coordination of the meeting. 

Some key points raised during the discussions included:

• The linkages between the conservation work communities are already engaging in and the concept of ICCAs. As community members, do we identify as ICCAs? Is there any difference between ICCAs and the work we are already doing? 
• Governance was determined to be a key point defining ICCAs. However, currently many communities might not have as much governance over their natural resources as they would like to. To this end, the idea of ICCAs as an aspirational term was brought forward. Not everyone here might embody perfectly all the characteristics of an ICCA right now, but these discussions provide a framework for communities to discuss, reflect and work towards certain objectives. Being an ICCA is a process. And it can empower communities to advocate for more governance. There is no ICCA that is absolutely self-governing as they are all subject to national law. 
• There is a great need for documentation, such as mapping and surveys. This would be useful to capture and preserve traditional knowledge and histories, but also to provide communities with a baseline and evidence as they attempt to engage with policy and face more and more challenges. 

Key challenges communities are facing:

Bwana Sururu of Kaya Muhaka explaining the
medicinal properties of the tree behind him

• Lack of capacity - in terms of skills to understand and comment on EIAs or Bills, and resources to enforce decisions that they make regarding the management of their protected area. In addition, when communities do attempt to engage with EIAs or legislative processes, they face many other hurdles - the comment periods are too short, the NEMA office will be closed for long hours or it is impossible to get a copy of the document in question. 
• Lack of transparent and consultative processes regarding the giving of permits or licenses (for example to fish, or harvest wood within a protected area), development or extractive projects, among others
• Poor enforcement of laws, often due to conflicts of interest - often representatives of the Fisheries Department or Forest Service do not support the community when complaints or requests are made. Later, communities have found that often there has been a conflict of interest as government officials also have commercial interests. 

There were also presentations on the Kenya Forests Bill and Community Land Bill, both of which will greatly affect many of the communities present. The two-day meeting finished with a field visit to a local Kaya (sacred grove).

ICCA meeting for Southern and East Africa discusses ICCA examples from the region

On 8 November Natural Justice and the ICCA Consortium co-convened a meeting near Cape Town, South Africa, on Indigenous Peoples and Local Community Controlled Territories and Conserved Areas (ICCAs) in Southern and East Africa, to identify examples and best practices from the region. 

Following a comprehensive introduction to ICCAs and their recognition under relevant international law by Natural Justice, two expert panels introduced and discussed ten individual examples of ICCAs in the region. 

On the basis of experiences from Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa and Tanzania, the 25 participants from the region discussed various strategies and best practices for communities to protect their ICCAs. The discussions revolved around management of ICCAs, documentation of ICCAs, and strategic litigation. 

Regarding management, the experiences from Namibia and Ethiopia, in particular, highlighted the importance of developing strong community management structures that integrate customary governance while also supporting livelihood generation. 

The discussion on documentation focused on resources and land documentation ‘on paper’, for instance through geo-referencing, as well as on documentation ‘in the landscape’ through the establishment of signposts and other visual aids. Especially the case studies on pastoralist communities, sacred sites and large land areas with weak enforcement structures underlined the importance of documentation as key to obtaining formal recognition of the areas, as well to protecting areas from other external interferences. 

Finally, the discussions on strategic litigation emphasized the importance of directly involving communities in litigation-related stakeholder negotiations and adjudicative processes. Empowering communities to hold meetings on their own ground, to speak on their own behalf, and to determine the overall strategy is key to ensuring positive outcomes and to increasing their confidence as actors in their own rights. 

The participants from the region concluded that portraying community conserved areas as ICCAs can be key to linking different resources and land rights issues with livelihood objectives and intra-community processes. 

Lesle Jansen and Gino Cocchiaro presented for Natural Justice. A large number of country and international legal reviews of ICCAs are available here. The ICCA registry can be accessed here.

DRAFT WIPO Toolkit on TK for Comment

While a wide range of tools have been developed to protect Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCEs), the focus has primarily been on documentation. With emerging concerns that documentation has potential effects on the rights, cultures and livelihoods of indigenous peoples and local communities, partly through placing TK and TCEs in the ‘public domain’, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has produced a draft Traditional Knowledge Documentation Toolkit to address some of these concerns. WIPO is seeking input on the draft towards a final publication. 

The Toolkit seeks to offer practical guidance on how to undertake a TK documentation exercise as a process and how to address critical intellectual property-related issues and questions as they surface during this effort. The Toolkit primarily focuses on TK but much may also apply to TCEs. The Toolkit does not promote documentation or suggest any one approach to intellectual property management, but rather offers a menu of alternatives to be taken into account in documentation projects and efforts. 

A summary of the consultation draft of the Toolkit can found here, and the Toolkit can be downloaded in English here (drafts in Spanish and French are being prepared). Comments and suggestions should be sent to grtkf@wipo.int.