Report on the Pacific Regional Seminar

Sivia Tora
Director of Culture and Heritage
Ministry of Culture and Heritage
Fiji Islands

Introduction

The Pacific Regional Seminar was held in Noumea, New Caledonia, 11-13 February 1999, jointly organized by UNESCO and the South Pacific Commission (SPC). Of the fourteen countries forwarded the questionnaires, thirteen responded and twelve countries attended the Seminar.

The objectives of the Seminar were:

1. To assess the present situation of preserving and safeguarding intangible culture in the region
2. To identify the roles of intangible heritage in the Pacific in relation to current major issues in the Pacific such as assertion of cultural identity, sustainable human development, globalization, peaceful ethnic co-habitation, youth cultures, evolution of new technologies, and environmental deterioration
3. To identify ways and means to reinforce the application of the Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore in the Pacific
4. To formulate a long-term strategy of cooperation and coordination aimed at the safeguarding, revitalization, legal protection, transmission, and dissemination of Pacific intangible and cultural heritage

Background

Awareness of the 1989 UNESCO Recommendation was minimal. Despite this, there are significant current activities in the relevant areas, the result of the Pacific nations' efforts to approach cultural heritage management in a systematic way.

Pacific countries place great importance on the intangible cultural heritage and recognize the value and relevance of systems of traditional knowledge and customary law, which are suitable to their social, cultural, and natural contexts. In the Pacific, the distinction between tangible and intangible cultural heritage is not made. They are considered to be a unified cultural heritage. For the purposes of this paper, this distinction is acknowledged in accordance with the Recommendation .

The intangible cultural heritage remains mainly unrecorded because it is oral. The situation is precarious because of the youthful nature of the Pacific population and the pressures of modern social organization and outside influence. In developing countries like the Pacific, where the economies are small and fragile, investment in cultural-sector infrastructure and support remains a low priority compared to that in other sectors such as health, education, and agriculture.

The recent history of the Pacific is one of colonization, in which a colonizing culture was actively promoted to replace the Indigenous cultures. There are, however, examples where indigenous cultural knowledge and traditional methods of managing the natural resources have gained recognition today as having importance and relevance for sustainable development. In this context, the term “folklore” is not an acceptable term. Our culture is not “folklore” but the sacred norms intertwined with our traditional way of life – the norms that set the legal, moral, and cultural values of our traditional societies. They are our cultural identity.

The Current Situation

Initiatives for the safeguarding and the preservation of traditional culture and folklore and for the protection of the possessors of artistry and skills are subject to several constraints. These include the following:

• Documentation of intangible cultural heritage is constrained through the reluctance to share traditional knowledge. This is because of distrust of outsiders, taboo, and because some knowledge is personal and cannot be divulged to others.
• The need to promote institutional development and capacity building, especially financial and technical support for cultural agencies at local and national levels, continues to be given the highest priorities.
• More effective systems are needed to monitor foreign researchers to ensure that they are responsible and accountable to the communities in which they work.
• The preservation, protection, and further development of intangible cultural heritage require participation of many stakeholders, including non-governmental organizations, local communities, elders, youth, and women.
• The intricacies of the land-tenure and the extended-family systems, which are characterized by communal ownership, suggest very strongly that the legal concept of a singular claimant is grossly inadequate for determining ownership of intellectual cultural property.
• The education system generally places strong emphasis on the three R's. Formal art education is still in its infancy.

Conserving, preserving, and protecting traditional culture and its producers have experienced important developments. These include the following:

• Significant activities are underway in relation to Pacific languages, e.g., revitalizing their usage, compiling dictionaries, and teaching them at all levels in schools. These activities are common throughout the Pacific, but it is still desirable to reinforce the utilization of Pacific languages in all fields. The same degree of effort is not expended for the other aspects of intangible cultural heritage such as music, mythology, rituals, customs, dance, and games, to name a few.
• Symposiums on the relevance of existing intellectual property rights to the Pacific context have been conducted.
• Some efforts have been made to secure the participation of community stakeholders in the identification and documentation of intangible cultural heritage.

The Role of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Today's Major Issues

Pacific peoples are Indigenous, and their multiple group identities and the spiritual unity of each group needs to be fully respected. The importance of integrating cultural factors into development strategies should be drawn to the attention of policy makers. Not only does culture play a supporting role in the tourism industry’s potential for employment creation and income generation. More importantly, the preservation of our heritage, which is our identity, is essential for engaging the strength, creativity, and actual cooperation of Indigenous peoples. Moreover, in a Pacific context, cultural identity is inseparable from land ownership. It was also noted that there was an element of contradiction between the assertion of cultural identity and the increasing globalization promoted by specialized institutions.

A “sustainable human development” strategy is not new to the Pacific peoples. It has been practiced through customary laws, taboo, etc., for centuries and needs to be revived and revitalized. Environmental degradation caused by major developmental projects often entails the diminishing or even loss of raw materials necessary to produce traditional material cultural objects. There is increasing recognition that traditional methods in the fields of agriculture and fishery are often effective for environmental sustainability. The effectiveness of traditional methods in conflict resolution was also emphasized.

Legal and Other Protections for Intangible Culture at the National Level

The majority of Pacific countries do not have the legal tools to protect expressions of their Indigenous cultures. Those that have introduced intellectual property rights (IPR) legislation are now questioning its relevance. While the current IPR laws may offer limited protection of community knowledge and innovations, in general they are inappropriate because they seek to privatize ownership; they are designed to be held by individuals and corporations rather than communities; they are expensive to apply for and to maintain; and they give a restrictive interpretation of invention.

The knowledge, use, and modification by local communities of medicinal plants are of critical importance to researchers but have not been given legal recognition and protection, whereas inventions based on this knowledge have. Almost every Pacific island has patent laws, but as far as is known, no patents have been taken out by any Pacific island country, either on bio-chemicals found in plants or on plant genetic material. But there are examples of plant material originating in the South Pacific, taken out of the region for analysis, and refined to isolate bio-chemicals which have either been patented themselves, or which were made into products subsequently patented. The kava is perhaps the best-known example of this.

The following resolutions were endorsed for recommendations to protect intangible cultural heritage:

• Pacific states that have not already done so should establish copyright laws with provisions to protect traditional cultural heritage from being wrongfully misappropriated.
• Sui generis IPR and non-legal systems should be developed to protect tangible and intangible cultural heritage that cannot be adequately protected through existing intellectual property laws.
• Governments of Pacific island nations should develop national cultural policies with particular regard to intangible cultural heritage and its customary owners.
• Governments should consider the relevance of traditional socio-political, economic, and environmental protection and take steps for their revitalization.
• In relevant legislation and policies, customary owners should be principal participants in the process of documenting and disseminating their knowledge, including control and sharing of benefits. Appropriate acknowledgement should be made by those who inherit or use traditional knowledge.

Recommendations for Regional and International Cooperation and Coordination

• The Stockholm Action Plan on Cultural Development should be brought to the attention of the South Pacific Forum for discussion, with particular reference to intangible cultural heritage and the 1989 UNESCO Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore, for possible adoption by the South Pacific Forum Member States.
• Regional Participation Program for the financial year 2000-2001 should include projects and activities related to intangible cultural heritage. National Commissions should be encouraged to actively pursue this.
• At the international level, UNESCO should draw on the expertise of traditional experts to actively support and promote greater awareness of customary systems of ownership, management, and transmission of Indigenous peoples' cultural heritage through undertaking national and regional research and seminars.
• UNESCO should hold a Pacific Regional Meeting in the Year 2000, the UN Year for a Culture of Peace, to revitalize traditional processes of mediation and conflict resolution.
• UNESCO should develop greater coordination with other intergovernmental agencies undertaking similar work such as, inter alia, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Secretariat on the Convention of Biological Diversity, and the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WIPG).