Sharing medicines from nature

Dr Chris Jones with the new guide, Building True Partnerships

A powerful treatment from the West Australian smoke bush, used by local Indigenous people, has been found to be effective against HIV. But what is the best way of ensuring that traditional owners of bush medicinal knowledge share in the benefits of drug 'discovery' and commercialisation?

Representatives from 10 departments at Macquarie University and a dozen Aboriginal communities have networked to develop standards for ethical legal relationships between Indigenous people and universities. These are set out in an accessible way in Building True Partnerships, a joint initiative of the communities and the University.

"We worked to facilitate relationships of trust, so that Aboriginal people can own their medical knowledge in ways that are meaningful for their own communities, and also have economic ownership," says Chris Jones. He and the team were given a $93,000 Vice-Chancellor's Development Grant to consult and listen to what communities had to say.

The guide is also supported by Deacons, one of Australia's largest law firms, on a pro bono basis. They are continuing to help develop resources such as an "ideal contract".

Building better legal models

The goal of this work is to move from an "us-them" model where "benefits" are shared in a tokenistic fashion, to one in which cultural resources with intrinsic value are shared, as among the members of a family. This would in turn influence policy, regionally and internationally, with aims of equitable sharing and building capacity.

"But first we need to point to examples of co-operation that have worked," says Jones.

The Federal Government is working to attract multinationals to search for medicines in Australian nature. In the case of the smoke bush, the Cancer Institute in the United States and the West Australian Government were testing it as a cancer treatment when its HIV-fighting properties were discovered. The Institute paid $1.5 million for access to the flora and fauna of the region, and Amrad, a pharmaceutical company based in Melbourne, did the testing.

The Indigenous people of the area did not receive anything.

Moving forward

Some 25 per cent of the world's pharmaceuticals come from Indigenous sources. As scientists in universities and industry test and develop new drugs, discussion must continue to improve ways of working together, says Jones. This could be through workshops at which institutions and Indigenous communities each explore what is expected of the other.

Jones wants to continue developing practical, on-the-ground relationships with Indigenous communities, in ways that meet their own voiced needs and empower them for self-determination.

He has organised international conferences in areas such as Indigenous Knowledge and Bio-prospecting, and has been asked to act as a consultant for films in the area. It is a fascinating and expanding field.

For further information, contact Dr Chris Jones at chris.jones@law.mq.edu.au

His website is at http://laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au/~cjone005/homepage.htm

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