Sustainable development blog : ecology and humanitarian aid

More than 35 countries recently participated in a United Nations-sponsored effort to protect  traditional medicines from bio-piracy. At a three-day meeting in New Delhi they discussed a database that has been developed in India – the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) – that documents and protects centuries old knowledge about country’s traditional medicines and treatments. The idea is to try and help protect these traditional medicines, which should be the property of people and nations, from being patented by unscrupulous companies and individuals for profit.

Traditional medicine is, according to the World Health Organisation, "the sum total of knowledge, skills and practices based on the theories, beliefs and experiences indigenous to different cultures that are used to maintain health, as well as to prevent, diagnose, improve or treat physical and mental illnesses."

Every natural environment, regardless of where it is, produces plants which can be used both as food and medicine, and all First Nations peoples retained knowledge and uses for them.

The plants used in traditional healing will vary from place to place, as is explained by Katsitsarishons (Suzanne Brant) is a Health Programs Coordinator at the First Nations Technical Institute, Tyendinaga 

Mohawk Territory in Ontario, Canada:

“Whatever [plant] you need is right around you. It’s conditioned to its environment, so it grows in certain soils and certain areas. It’s the same with us as human beings. We grow in a certain place, so we utilize those plants that are around us. And [plant use] shifts depending on where you’re at.” Read more »

On July 24, Brindi was seized and put on death row... And we have 13 days to act.