Commodifying cultural knowledge: corporatised western science and Pacic indigenous knowledge

Steven Ratuva Introduction

refers to as the western culture of supremacy (Bessis 2003). Within the colonial discourse Knowledge systems are products of changing western science is often seen as enlightening cultural contexts and evolving circumstances and progressive and indigenous knowledge as and as such they tend to be adaptive. Often, our primitive and inferior. Some indigenous scholars knowledge of knowledge system is either based have in recent years attempted to counter this on external interpretations of how a group perception through political activism and the denes, codies and articulates its experiences redenition of intellectual paradigms through and conceptualisations of the world or internal the decolonization of perceptions (Smith 1998). Despite the continuing interaction between experiences and feelings within a cultural conthem, western science and text. For those of us sociaindigenous Pacic knowllised into indigenous cultural Steve Ratuva is a political sociologist at edge are still perceived as epistemology, as well as the University of Auckland and President being dichotomous, with being trained in western episof the Pacic Islands Political Studies Association. He is a former Head of divergent and opposing temological discourse, the Sociology at the University of the South sets of assumptions and dilemma has always been Pacic and fellow at the Australian ethics (Gegeo and Gegeo how to engage the two meanNational University. He is the author of 2001). This view is preingfully or how to choose one several scholarly works, including the mised on the perception over the other and in what book Pacic genes and life patents. Pacic indigenous experiences and analysis of the that the use of western circumstances this choice commodication and ownership of life, coscience as a tool of proshould be made. Some may edited with Aroha Mead of Victoria gress has been imperialissee this as problematic and University, and also acts as a consultant tic, transformational and confusing, while others may and advisor for a number of international hegemonic. In the context see it as a process of enriching organisations including the United of this article western intellectual and cultural Nations Development Programme, the Asia Development Bank and the International science itself as a body of engagement between different Labour Organisation. methodology and concepepistemological paradigms, Email: ratuva@auckland.ac.nz tual framework is not so with the possibility of an much seen as problematic, evolution towards an integrated and inclusive appr-oach to understanding but rather the problem is seen to lie in relation to its redened purpose as an instrument of global the world. Underpinning this dilemma is the power capital accumulation and expansion by corpocomponent of the relationship between intro- rate interests. Thus, rather than the traditional duced western science and local indigenous romantic optimism that science provides the basis knowledge. Hitherto, colonialism and imperial- for exploration of the frontiers of knowledge, ism had dened the hegemonic relationship it has in its new corporatised role, facilitated by between the two, especially what Sophie Bessis global neoliberal and legal arrangements such as
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the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) become aggressively expansionist and predatory. The globalisation of technology and information technology (IT) has given science a new image that it is an inevitable and unquestionable part of modern day human culture. This is often used as an ideology to justify and drive the extraction and commodication of indigenous knowledge. The mesmerising appeal of modern science as representing a superior way of life makes it easier to be accepted by indigenous populations. But over the years the reaction by indigenous populations against what they have seen and experienced as exploitation of their traditional knowledge has sparked a new wave of resistance in protective international instruments, indigenous activism, advocacy and lobbying and development of anti-hegemonic discourses in academia, which emphasise both the importance of indigenous knowledge to indigenous peoples and the potential contribution it can make to modern wisdom. In the Pacic western science and local knowledge systems are in many cases diametrically opposed (Huffer and Qalo 2004). At the same time it can be argued that the relationship between western science and indigenous traditional knowledge is more complex and involves a dialectical and somewhat syncretic relationship where contradiction and accommodation take place simultaneously (Ratuva 2003, p.246). Western science and indigenous Pacic epistemology have interacted and engaged with each other over the years, sometimes on the basis of accommodation and sometimes on the basis of contradiction. Indigenous peoples have used aspects of western science to serve their interests. In many cases, indigenous knowledge has been further enriched by incorporating aspects of western knowledge and western knowledge has been enriched by incorporation of aspects of indigenous knowledge. This process of accommodation, however, has its limitations, especially when the power dynamics between the two modes of knowledge becomes unsustainably unbalanced and predatory. Thus the term accommodation is itself problematic because, depending on how it is conceptualised, it can be used as a Trojan horse for cultural hegemony and exploitation. This

is what the article attempts to demonstrate that corporatised western science now recognises the validity of indigenous Pacic knowledge and accommodates it through extraction and commodication. The article later examines some cases of these processes of extraction and commodication and discusses some of the implications for Pacic indigenous communities.

Western science and human interest

Ever since the scientic revolution and the Enlightenment science was often perceived by many exponents of the scientic approach as serving a specic social purpose. Seidman argues that the thinkers of the Enlightenment aimed both to understand human behaviour and use science to promote freedom and progress (Seidman 2008). The debate on the nature of science during the Enlightenment period revolved around the issue of whether science was purely materialistic or whether moral attributes could be derived from it. Theorists like Montesquieu (1975), Adam Smith and Condorcet (1955) were able to tie the knot between science and liberal humanistic worldview through the assertion which conceived of human history as shaped by individual behaviour within the framework of universal laws. Comtes positivistic approach, which had some inuence on modern sociology, was based on a deep-seated faith in the scientic laws that guided human progress. But it had the paradoxical undercurrent in that, while it purported to promote the scientic method as being objective and separable from morality, it ended up being loaded with polemical moral assumptions about human progress, as prescribed in his three stages of human thought the theological, the metaphysical and the positive (Comte 1876). Even Marxs dialectical materialism had a strong scientic strand which contended that the dynamics of history was governed by some universal laws (Avineri 1978). The obsession with the scientic truth by early classical thinkers stemmed from the belief that universal laws were static and beyond question. Thus, the most that we humans could

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do was express our humanity by changing the world within the connes of existing laws that governed both the physical and social worlds. Woven into this notion was the optimistic belief that science provided the fulcrum for social and political freedom and justice for all. Science was seen as a tool of enlightenment and progress towards modernity. However, progress was dened through Eurocentric glasses and human groups were placed in a hierarchy of superiority in which western societies were perceived to be superior to non-western ones. This assumption is still implicit in some contemporary thinking that western science is superior to indigenous technology and knowledge. Even critical scholars such as Marx, Habermas and C. Wright Mills shared this grand optimism about the link between science and progress. However, this belief came under assault during the post-war period as a result of fundamental changes in the social, political and cultural landscape, the reconguration of the global political economy that saw the consolidation of the power of multinational corporations, the growth of the media and new information systems, the weakening of the state system and greater engagement between science and politics. These changes saw the rise of post-modernism and the reinterpretation of the world in a non-linear and fragmented manner and the critiquing of the grand narrative approach. For post-modernist theorists this signalled the end of the notion of scientic progress (Seidman 2008). During the post-war era the rise of corporate institutions as powerful vanguards of global capital with the capacity to buy and privatise science, coupled with the development of legal means such as intellectual property laws to facilitate the commodication of knowledge, meant that science had become a powerful fulcrum for capital accumulation. A feature of contemporary globalised society is the symbiotic relationship between science and economics as manifested though the IT industry and other forms of sophisticated technology as described by Mirowski thus:
Somewhere along the way, with the help of the logical positivists, science itself was getting conated with mechanical induction, a conation made more acceptable by the hypnotic ashing lights of those imposing mainframe computers upon which the algorithms were played

out. All further tended to treat some generic thing called mathematics as if it were capable by itself of cutting the knot binding science and the economy. (Mirowski, 2004, p.9).

Science as a methodological construct has been clothed in cultural, political, economic and ideological polemics so that it is no longer possible to understand it in purely mechanistic terms. Not only is science a highly marketable commodity, it can also be utilised to transform cultural properties into commodiable goods and a way of doing this is by using of patents on indigenous knowledge. The relationship between western science and indigenous knowledge has become problematic, especially in relation to the process of extraction and patenting of aspects of Pacic Island cultural knowledge and genetic material. Western science has become an instrument used by large corporations to identify and extract genetic material from ora and fauna which the Pacic indigenous people have known and cherished for a long time. This is precisely where the problem lies. Science as a tool of intellectual enquiry has been transformed into an instrument of corporate capital accumulation. Thus, I use the term corporatised science to describe the process by which science has been privatised as part of what Philip Mirowski refers to as the mix and match hybrid inquiry with economic theories which, in this new regime of globalised privatisation, is geared towards servicing corporate interests under the guise of objectivity (Mirowski, 2004). Some of the emerging trends relating to the privatisation of science include the displacement of individual scientic authorship by crediting corporate institutions, the legal and economic reconceptualisation of intellectual property, reconguring the role of universities and research institutions and converting information and data into commodities. These are facilitated and reinforced by the global neoliberal agenda and networks of corporate subcontracts and privatised research which certain sections of academia in both social science and natural science have been part of. In recent years the relationship between science and society has increasingly become a matter of concern and debate, particularly in relation to issues of ethics. A report by the International Council for Science in 2005 in response to the growing

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Table 1: The increasingly complex relationship between science and society Changes in the mobility and global ows of science and scientists Changes in the production of scientic knowledge, including the growth of hybrid public-private sponsorship that raises concerns about the impartiality of science New risks and uncertainties arising from changes in the speed and scale of technological innovation Changes in the way that science and technology are governed, particularly as a result of globalisation; and changes in the nature of expertise within civil society on the relationship between science and society Source: Dickson, 2005, p.1.

number and complexity of the potential sources of conict between science and society identied the following as signicant aspects of the complex relationship between science and society (Dickson, 2005, p.1; see Table 1). The second point in Table 1 is pertinent to this article, especially in relation to the hybridisation of scientic knowledge in the context of privatepublic interest. The use of science in pursuit of private interests is often justied as serving the public interest. Corporate institutions often use state legislative, bureaucratic and legal mechanisms to safeguard private interests for their own ends. Facilitate by neoliberalism, globalisation has rolled back the frontiers of the state and allowed public space to be dominated by private interests, fuelled through the privatisation of state assets and infrastructures, including state research and scientic institutions. The concern here is not so much the epistemic and cultural differences between western science and indigenous knowledge but the ways in which commercial interests represented by research, consultancy, subcontracting, technology transfer, legal instruments and global neoliberal networks progressively transform western science into a complex and powerful system of technological and cultural hegemony.

commodication of knowledge and a meeting place for science and commercialisation. The Uruguay Round of the General Agreement for Trade and Tariffs (GATT) decided on the globalisation of patents when they included IPRs in trade treaties and included life forms among IPRs. Legislation for TRIPS, which was accepted by the WTO in 1994, was drafted and pushed through by industry through the intense lobbying of government ofcials and ofcials of GATT. A representative of the American biotechnology company Monsanto, James Enyart, boasted that Besides selling our concepts at home, we went to Geneva where [we presented our] documents to the staff of the GATT Secretariat. We also took the opportunity to present it to the Geneva based representatives of a large number of people (quoted in Shiva 2001, p.1). This type of aggressive corporate lobbying was absolutely unprecedented in GATTs history (Shiva 2001, p.1). The signicant point here is that the monopolistic control of life forms by TRIPS has very serious implications on biodiversity and indigenous knowledge because it allowed for patents on life as well as biopiracy. Article 27.3 (b) of TRIPS (p.5) provides that
Parties may exclude from patentability plants and animals other than microorganisms, and especially biological processes for the production of plants or animals other than non-biological and microbiological processes. However, parties shall provide for the protection of plant varieties either by patents or by an effective sui generic system or by any combination thereof. This provision shall be reviewed four years after the entry into force of the agreement establishing the WTO.

Intellectual property rights and human rights

The existing legal regime on related intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the form of TRIPS represents a regulatory mechanism for the

In 1980 the US Supreme Court granted the rst patent on life and justied it by dening life as the manufacture or composition of matter (Sreenivasulu and Raju, 2008, p.66). This interpretation implied that life was a potential laboratory piece that could only be understood in physical terms and as such was naturally commodiable. While the USA had to protect its biotechnology industry, this had the tendency to undermine the complex relationship between the social and natural environment, the spiritual and cultural afnity between indigenous people and their cosmology. This opened the oodgates for patenting human cells, cows, sheep, seeds and microorganisms. Granting patents to

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genetically-modied organisms (GMO) led to the patenting of products and processes derived from indigenous knowledge of biodiversity. The patents on Pacic resources such as taro, coconut and kava happened this way. Unlike TRIPS, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has a more accommodating approach to indigenous knowledge, as reected in its Leaet no.12 on WIPO and indigenous people:
Indigenous intellectual property includes the information, practices, beliefs, and philosophy that are unique to each indigenous culture. Once traditional knowledge is removed from an indigenous community, the community loses control over the way in which that knowledge is used. In most cases, this system of knowledge evolved over many centuries and is unique to the indigenous peoples customs, traditions, land and resources. Indigenous peoples have the right to protect intellectual property, including the right to protect that property against its inappropriate use or exploitation(WIPO, 2000, p.1).

to recognize the importance of freedom of scientic research and the benets derived from scientic and technological developments, while stressing the need for such research and developments to occur within the framework of ethical principles set out in this Declaration and to respect human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms. (p.1).

These sentiments are reected in other UN-related international Conventions such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenants on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights and on Civil and Political Rights, the International Labour Organization Convention no. 169 and the draft UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. While these international legal instruments provide the framework for protecting indigenous knowledge, they however, do not guarantee the cessation of biopiracy and of the exploitation of indigenous knowledge. One of the latest attempts to regulate and humanise the use of science is the Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights (UNESCO 2005). Article 1 is quite explicit in addressing ethical issues related to medicine, life sciences and associated technologies as applied to human beings, taking into account their social, legal and environmental dimensions. The Declaration is addressed to states with the hope that individual states will enact bioethics legislation that will provide guidance for individuals, groups, communities, institutions and corporations, public and private, involved in scientic research. In Article 2 (d), the Declaration attempts to provide a delicate and harmonious balance between scientic research and human dignity by attempting

Perhaps one of the most signicant provisions relates to Article 3 (2) that states that the interests and welfare of the individual should have priority over the sole interest of science or society (p.1.). This seems to be an inversion of an inuential school of thought that individual interests can be sacriced in the name of science and humanity. The explicit emphasis on nationally legislated bioethics is a recognition of the primacy of humanity over science and commercial interest. In relation to the rights of indigenous communities, the Preamble of the Declaration recognises that unethical scientic and technological conduct has had a particular impact on indigenous and local communities (p.1.) and the need to reinforce international cooperation in the eld of bioethics, taking into account, in particular, the special needs of developing countries, indigenous communities and vulnerable populations (p.1.).

The extraction and commodication of traditional knowledge in the Pacic

The Pacic is home to some of the most diverse life forms, languages and culture. This has attracted scientists working for large food and pharmaceutical corporations interested in extracting not only traditional knowledge, but also the actual natural material to be patented. A large number of well-known Pacic species have been patented. This is a case of western science, driven by corporate interests, being utilised to extract and pirate traditional knowledge. Table 2 shows some of the patents on traditional food commonly used by Pacic Islanders. The plants and sea species in Table 2 have been part of the Pacic knowledge system for centuries. They were regarded as part of their cosmology, yet they were the means of daily sustenance as food and medicine, or were used

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Table 2: Patents on traditional crops used by Pacic peoples Crop name Canarium nut oil, Canarium indicum Cassava, Maninot esculenta Coconut, Cocos nucifera Kava, Piper methysticum Patent and comments US6,395,313,28 with a statement of intent to pursue the patent in a total of 127 countries. The patent identies three source Pacic countries, Vanuatu (nangai), Papua New Guinea (galip) and the Solomon Islands (ngali) The two cassava patents cover a natural disease resistance gene and a gene that affects the type of starch produced US6,699,847 anti-parasite formulation includes 2075% fractionated coconut oil. Calgene has been granted a US patent for the thioesterase gene, which covers the expression of the gene in rapeseed and other annual oilseed crops, including coconut oil Kava patents include US2,495,429 kavalactone product US6,312,736 herbal composition to relieve pain US5,976,550 dietary food supplement, US20030099756 method of producing a processed kava EP1284745 use of kava extracts for alcohol dependence EP531413, US5,599,839, W09118595. Claims that the ownership of the prostratin compound found in mamala belongs to the US Department of Health and Human Services, the US Army and Brigham Young University Greenpeace International lists 11 papaya patents and reports that the Hawaii Papaya Industry Association, having offered free GE papaya seeds to encourage farmers to move away from organic to GE crops, has now instigated charges for transgenic papaya seeds US5,322,722, 5,093,338 and 5,091,381 According to Marinova the US Patent Ofce has issued 1371 sandalwood patents since 1976 There are several patented products using tamanu oil and many more tamanu products at patent application stage US patents PP12,342; PP12,772 for Hawaiian varieties of taro were recently abandoned after strenuous protests from native Hawaiians, but other taro products remain under patent US patents 5,047,957, 5,492,938 and 4,599,152 US patent 6,808,650 water improver of coral algae, shell and ascorbate salt US patent 4,463,031 and 4,540,584 coral calcium EP04102643 coral propagation techniques US5,091,368 biologically active compounds from blue green algae. Also patented in France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Spain, Switzerland US4,302, 470 anti-tumour agent derived from sponges. US2543,220 for pure brown seaweed extract Collected from four sites in Fiji. (Georgia Tech has led a provisional patent to protect the discovery of structures and small variations in the seaweed varieties)

Mamala, Homolanthus acuminatus Papaya, Carica papaya Rapa Nui soil extracts Sandalwood, Santalum spp. Tamanu oil, Canophyllum inophyllum Taro, Colocasia esculenta Patents on marine resources Beche-de-mer, sea cucumber Coral Marine algae Marine sponges Seaweed, brown Seaweed, red Source: Mead, A. 2007.

for various social purposes. The patenting of these common Pacic species is an example of how western science has been used to penetrate the indigenous knowledge system in the name of progress for the human race, even though the extraction of indigenous knowledge without the informed consent of the owners of this knowledge is tantamount to biopiracy. Let us look at the case of the mamala plant, which is found throughout the Pacic but was ofcially discovered in Samoa by a group of US researchers in 1990, when it was found that it had anti-AIDS characteristics. An agreement was signed between the discoverer and a number of

chiefs on behalf of the village of Falealupo, where the plant was found. But interestingly, no signed record of the agreement has been found (Peteru 2007a, pp. 178181). Two more agreements were later signed between the Samoan Government and AIDS Research Alliance of America (ARA) and the University of California at Berkeley, relating to sharing the benets of this plant. One of the emerging questions is who exactly owns knowledge of the mamala plant. Mamala has traditionally been used as a medicinal herb and this knowledge has been around for a long time in the Pacic. Did the Samoan government have the right of ownership and thus the right to sign the

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agreement with the research institutions concerned? Even if the Falealupo villagers claimed ownership, did they understand what they were doing when they signed the agreement allowing the discoverers access to their forest? Clark Peteru, a leading Samoan IPR lawyer asks a number of relevant questions:
Was permission ever sought by the patent-holders from anyone in Samoa to patent prostratin the desired chemical in mamala? In the ARA and University of Berkeley agreements, who determined who the beneciaries would be and their entitlements? Who actually determined that any benets from the chemical would be gifted to the international community?(Peteru 2007a, p.179).

The fact that mamala is a Pacic-wide plant complicates the issue further. Do all indigenous Pacic people own it? This question reverberates louder when one considers the patenting of coconuts and kava two plants important in Pacic life. Coconut is very much an integral part of everyday Pacic life. Knowledge of its use in food, medicine, oil, as a building material, for basket-weaving, rope-making, cup-making and so on has been part of indigenous Pacic culture for centuries. The patenting of coconut oil represents a major shift in the debate about the legitimacy of ownership. How was consent provided and by whom? Who signed the agreement? The case of kava is even more disturbing, because kava is considered a sacred and spiritual drink. It has been used for centuries by Pacic people as a social and ritualistic drink as well as a medicinal substance. The patenting and commodication of kavalactone, the main chemical extract in kava, represented the transformation of cultural knowledge from the sacred to the secular realm. In terms of power relations, it is a form of knowledge hegemony, illustrating how commercialised science has transformed and reduced indigenous knowledge to a sellable commodity.

isolated, extracted and sold on the market. For corporations they are commodities that could be used to generate prot. For Pacic Islanders they are sacred parts of their collective identity and being. This perception is very much part of their cosmological and knowledge system. In 2000 Autogen Ltd, an Australian company, announced that it had signed an agreement with Tongas Ministry of Health to carry out research to identify the genes that cause common diseases such as diabetes among the unique population resources of the Kingdom of Tonga (Senituli 2007, p.172). The research initiative would entail collecting tissues from consenting individual Tongans. In exchange, the company was to provide funding for annual research to Tongas Ministry of Health, in addition to paying royalties from the revenues thus generated. In Tonga there was public anger in reaction to the proposal, based on the belief that individual genetic material does not belong to individuals, as the Autogen Company and its scientists assumed, but to the entire extended family and kinship group. Furthermore, Tonga critics argued that it was inconceivable that a company should have rights over a persons body, a sacred part of the cosmology. The research was seen as a negation of the Tongan ngeia o e tangata, the dignity of the human person derived from the Creator (Senituli 2007, p.175). Autogen eventually pulled out of Tonga but waves of discontent had been created. This was reected in the Final Statement of the Bioethics Consultation held in Tonga in March 2001, which, among other things, passed the following resolution:
We believe in God as the Supreme Creator of all living things; We believe all life-forms should be treated in a way that respects their intrinsic value as living generational manifestations of Creations; We believe scientic and commercial advances should not be allowed to proceed past the deliberations necessary for their social, moral and ethical control; We believe the cloning of human beings is wrong; We believe that all forms of genetic engineering of human genes should be rejected.(Senituli 2007, p.176).

Genetic material research

Apart from the patenting of traditional food and other resources, there have also been disturbing cases of scientists employed by research institutes or companies doing genetic research becoming involved in genetic extraction. The issue here is that peoples genes are seen by scientists as physical entities that can easily be

The resolution clearly shows the conicts between science and traditional knowledge both at the philosophical and operational levels.

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A similar case in the Cook Islands involved a New Zealand company, Diatranz. This company wanted to carry out xenotransplantation in the population. This would involve inserting insulinproducing pig cells into diabetic patients to restore insulin production as a way of ending their reliance on daily insulin injections. Although the government had agreed to the proposal there was strong reaction from the people along lines similar to the Tongan case. One of the Cook Islands critics of the programme summed up popular opinion thus:
Genes are a key resource of the new world bio-economy and our isolation and diversity makes the Pacic islands particularly attractive. We urgently need to act to protect our genetic resources from theft, misuse, piracy and pollution, in the same way as we previously struggled to regain sovereignty over and protect our nations other key resources. Xenotransplanting, like genetic engineering, raises philosophical questions relating to the breaching of species boundaries and cultural, spiritual and ethical considerations concerning the integrity of human beings and the incorporation of animal parts or material. (Mataiapo-Dorice Reid (2007, p.87).

primitive-like superstition, anti-development, and anti-science, ignorant of the complexities of the science and patent laws, naive to the promise of biotechnology, and disrespectful of intellectual property as a purported essential mechanism to achieve all of the aforementioned (Mead 2007, p.46). Realisation of the extent of biopiracy of indigenous knowledge in the Pacic led to Pacic-wide consultations and declarations to raise consciousness on the issues as well as alert people as to what could be done. These included the following:

There have been cases of genetic research in Papua New Guinea among the Hagahai people in the Solomon Islands and in Vanuatu that resulted in particular cell lines being patented in the USA. The Papua New Guinea case involved patenting the cell line of one specic Hagahai man but the research required over 200 people. The Solomon Islands case involved 851 donors and the Vanuatu one required 391 (Mead 2007, p.48). The patenting of human genetic material is problematic because it epitomises one of the fundamental drawbacks of commercially driven science. The undermining of the indigenous peoples sense of identity, human dignity, sacredness and spirituality, symbolised by their genes, in the search for prot is part of a new wave of biopiracy. Resistance to the extraction and patenting of the Hagahai and Solomon Islands genes was based on ve themes. Life patents (a) were unethical, (b) contravened deeply valued cultural beliefs about the sanctity of life, (c) breached human rights standards, including prior informed consent, (d) encroached on local community and national sovereignty, and (e) typied bad practice in science and law (Mead 2007, p.46). On the other hand, indigenous reaction was ridiculed as being

 Mataatua declaration on the cultural and intellectual property issues of indigenous peoples (First International Conference on the Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples 1993).  Julayinbul statement on indigenous intellectual property rights (Julayinbul Aboriginal Intellectual Property Conference 1993).  Final statement, PCRC/UNDP consultation on indigenous peoples knowledge (Proceedings of the Indigenous Peoples Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights Consultation 1995)  Treaty for a life-forms patent-free Pacic and associated protocols (Pacic Consultation on the Protection and Conservation of Indigenous Peoples Knowledge (1995).  Statement from the inaugural indigenous peoples of the Pacic workshop on the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples (Indigenous Peoples of the Pacic Workshop on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 1996).  Model law on traditional biological knowledge. Innovations and practices (Forum Secretariat 2000).  Final statement of bio-ethics consultation in the Pacic (Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism 2001).  Resolutions of the 7th conference on nature conservation in the Pacic Islands region (South Pacic Regional Environmental Program 2002).  Regional framework for the protection of traditional knowledge and expressions of culture (Secretariat of the Pacic Community 2002).  Paoakalini declaration (Ka Aha Pono Conference 2003).

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 Recommendations of the 1st Pacic consultation on the UN permanent forum on indigenous issues (Pacic Concerns Resources Center 2004).  Submissions from the Call of the Earth Llamado de la Tierra, on Pacic (Call of the Earth 2005).  UNESCO Pacic declaration on biopiracy (UNESCO 2007).

Conclusion
The examples presented in this article may not be conclusive, but they are replicated in other parts of the world where indigenous peoples knowledge of their immediate environment has been transformed as a result of domination by commercialised western science. The power differences are immense. Commercialised science is backed by powerful corporations, governments and research institutions. As a result of globalisation and neoliberalism there has been a concerted move facilitated by the WTO to free up and privatise various forms of knowledge. One of the ironies is that commercialised western science, through research, provides validation for indigenous knowledge and, as a result, seeks to extract and transform it through economic, technical and political means. Perhaps one of the most important issues is ownership of knowledge. Who actually owns indigenous knowledge relating to say, the medicinal value of plants like kava? The question is pertinent, given that kava is assumed to have spiritual qualities and a spiritual identity.

Related to this is the question of informed consent. Were the owners of indigenous knowledge properly consulted and did they provide informed consent? Yet another important issue is how Pacic Islanders can protect indigenous knowledge. The Pacic Island Forum currently oversees a model law called the Pacic Model Law on Traditional Biological Knowledge, Innovation and Practices. Among other things, the model law deals with a number of complex issues: can indigenous knowledge be owned? What happens if there are no known owners? What rights are granted to holders of indigenous knowledge? What happens when there are two or more owners? How should one deal with indigenous knowledge in the public domain? What are the rights of state compared to non-state owners? (Peteru 2007b, p.185). In addition, there have been a number of initiatives by civil society organisations, UN agencies such as UNESCO, and governments in the Pacic region to protect indigenous knowledge in the face of globalisation and unscrupulous biopirates. These have taken the form of declarations, conventions and agreements, as well as legislation and policies. Fiji, for instance, has taken the lead in carrying out a comprehensive cultural mapping exercise to determine the extent to which various forms of indigenous knowledge still exist and how they can be protected. Globalisation has sharpened the distinction and contradiction between commercialised western science and indigenous knowledge in the Pacic. The engagement between the two systems of knowledge are asymmetric and unequal, shaped not so much by peoples sense of being and love of knowledge, but by market forces.

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