Project Name: Advocacy Programme for the Protection of People’s Rights Over Common Property Resources

Donor: BARCIK - Misereor

Total Budget: Tk. 204,000.00

Staff: One

Duration: August 2003 to July 2005

Working Area: Voirupha, Dighinala, Khagrachari

Participants : Communities, NGO and government representatives in Khagrachari District

Project Purpose:To promote the protection of sovereign rights for communities in Bangladesh over common property resources

Project Summary: TUS recognises the importance of local and indigenous knowledge in all aspects, including the management of natural resources. This knowledge supports the survival of peoples and environments, and represents generations of experience.

Through the Advocacy Programme, TUS participated in a national-level project which aimed to create recognition of indigenous knowledge on natural resource management in mainstream development agendas and policy-making processes. The inclusion of local people's perspectives in government policy documents is one way of ensuring communities' protection of their common property resources from threats of bio-piracy, environmental destruction, and exploitation of local knowledge.

The Programme took place in five regions of Bangladesh, with TUS acting as the lead organisation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Over two years, TUS worked to increase awareness of indigenous knowledge and resource rights amongst communities, NGOs, journalists and government representatives in Khagrachari.

TUS shared findings on the inclusion of indigenous knowledge in government policy documents in two workshops, each with 25 representatives of local NGOs, community organisations and government departments. By sharing these findings, TUS helped to raise local awareness of these national policies, to initiate dialogue on their content, and to encourage local peoples to raise their voices on policy development.

Recognising the vital role of media in advocacy campaigns, TUS organised two sharing meetings with local journalists to discuss the importance of indigenous knowledge, sustainable practices and biodiversity, and to encourage them to use the media to publicise the importance of these issues throughout the country.

TUS also worked with grassroots practitioners and local activists, organising twenty community learning workshops in villages, and four in Unions, each with about 30 participants. The workshops included discussions on common property resources, biodiversity conservation, indigenous knowledge and intellectual property rights, and helped local actors to raise their awareness of, and share learnings on, the protection of resources from bio-piracy and other threats.

Supplementing the workshops, ongoing awareness-raising discussions on natural resource management and biodiversity were held throughout the project with local community groups. TUS worked to ensure these complex issues were presented in ways easily accessible to local peoples. In the discussions, TUS also encouraged communities to share their knowledge, and was able to collect and document numerous examples of sustainable natural resource management practices used in Khagrachari. Through this exchange, TUS was able to contribute to both awareness-raising on the importance, and to the continued sharing, of, local and indigenous knowledge in the preservation of peoples and their environments.

Reference Contact Details:
Sukanta Sen
Executive Director, BARCIK
3/7 Block D, Lalmatia
Dhaka-1207