Intellectual property rights for the knowledge of indigenous peoples, open seminar talk by Camille Meyer (UTC)

On Tuesday 8 February, Dr. Camille Meyer (University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business) presented a seminar on the ownership of biological knowledge originally held by indigenous communities. After demonstrating that such knowledge was released to the public domain by colonial botanists, he presented three case studies showing that international, national and local efforts have been made for such resources to be “recommonized” by local communities. In such cases, indigenous communities reclaim ownership of their traditional knowledge by establishing intellectual property rights on biological knowledge.