Safeguarding Indigenous biocultural resources in a global context: a case study of taramea

Indigenous people are considering how to safeguard their natural resources, culture and knowledge against illegal, inappropriate or unauthorised use. Such protection is needed to maintain the integrity of Indigenous relationship to and control over such resources, while allowing for potential benefits from such resources to support tribal social and economic development.

Using the case study of taramea (Aciphylla aurea), a sub-alpine speargrass, traditionally used to make fragrance by Ngāi Tahu (a large tribe from the South Island, New Zealand), we assess potential approaches to protection, ranging from national and international intellectual property approaches such as trademarking, copyright and patenting to extra-legal approaches such as supply chain auditing, blockchain, biocultural trademarks and biocultural labels.

From this assessment, we evaluate approaches’ usefulness against a range of Indigenous and market-oriented attributes. We find that while each approach has advantages and disadvantages, no one method is superior, so we recommend a mix of approaches.