Traditional Knowledges Guidelines: Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and Risk and Opportunity Assessment for Engagement with TKs Holders

There is increasing recognition of the value of traditional knowledges in large landscape conservation, management and adaptation to climate change. More funding is being made available to Indigenous peoples to document and exchange traditional knowledges with scientists to generate solutions through co-learning and co-production of knowledge. These exercises can generate significant benefits to both scientists and indigenous peoples. However, they may rest on unexamined assumptions that ignore power asymmetries, differences in worldviews, understandings about the nature and use of knowledge, and risks to shared traditional knowledges and cultural resources associated with. The word "risk" rarely appears in published studies, and there are often no institutions equivalent to Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) that guide Human Subjects Research. The failure to incorporate risk can create two kinds of moral hazards - one from the failure to include Indigenous peoples, and the other from the inclusion of Indigenous peoples without adequate safeguards. I discuss guidelines developed by an Indigenous working group to provide guidance drawn from experience and existing Indigenous protocols to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). FPIC requires balanced assessments of both risks and opportunities to provide procedural safeguards and establish a common understanding of culturally sensitive issues in research projects. Respecting Indigenous guidelines and protocols is fundamental to building the trust necessary for collaboration involving traditional knowledges.