Politics, Culture, and Governance in the Development of Prior Informed Consent in Indigenous Communities.

Abstract

Why did an early effort to build an ethical bioprospecting relationship with indigenous people in Peru survive when a more sophisticated approach with arguably better opportunities for indigenous communities in Mexico later foundered in a sea of criticism? Two projects funded under the International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG), one working with Aguaruna people in Peru and another working with Maya people in Chiapas, Mexico, have struggled with identification of appropriate representation of community interests and with concerted campaigns by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to halt their efforts despite broad interest among the indigenous communities they contacted. The Peru ICBG ultimately succeeded in developing credible working partnerships and carried the project through to completion, while the Maya (Mexico) ICBG became mired in defense of its approach to prior informed consent and was terminated early. In this paper I summarize relevant aspects of the history of these two landmark projects and draw some lessons about the role of culture, politics, and local governance in the differing outcomes of their efforts. In particular, I point to the role of preexisting and broadly representative indigenous governance as a key factor in determining the feasibility and integrity of prior informed consent for the use of traditional knowledge. This conclusion is important because it suggests concerted movement away from the traditional model of individually oriented ethnobotanical studies for bioprospecting that involves indigenous communities toward one that is structured around institutional relationships. The central thesis of the ICBGs is that research and development projects designed to discover new pharmaceutical precursors in developing countries can, carefully constructed and equitably managed, produce benefits to health, conservation, and sustainable development. Since 1993 several agencies of the U.S government—the National Institutes of Health