It is not limited to any specific technical field, and may include agricultural, environmental and medicinal knowledge, and knowledge associated with genetic resources. The role and nature of protection of traditional knowledge has remained contentious. At the final meeting before the expiration of its current mandate, the IGC was initially unable to agree on a work agenda for the biennium 2010–2011. While many developing countries were urging members to begin “text-based

negotiations” for a treaty, other IGC members thought that further deliberations are necessary, as many basic questions still required further selleck screening library clarification (WIPO 2009a). At their Annual Assemblies at the end of 2009, WIPO member states finally renewed the IGC mandate with the objective of reaching agreement on a text of an international legal instrument (or instruments) (WIPO 2009b). Biodiversity related traditional knowledge in Southeast Asian developing countries: who are the knowledge holders? The IGC definition of traditional knowledge is “not limited to any specific technical field” but envisages as main forms “agricultural, environmental and medicinal knowledge, and knowledge associated

with genetic resources.” While these may appear as potentially different forms for the purposes of regulation and subject to the regulatory authorities of different ministries as well as to different forms of intellectual property rights, it has been pointed out that there is much overlap in reality. Traditional

medicinal knowledge may depend on forest C1GALT1 resources selleckchem as well as on resources cultivated in herbal gardens. For example, it is said that 25% of the raw materials for the traditional Indonesian medicine jamu is collected from the forests by people knowledgeable with regards to the medicinal benefits of such forest resources, but that the number of such skilled collectors is in decline and that there is a danger of unsustainable harvesting of wild plants (Antons and Antons-Sutanto 2009, p. 365; Beers 2001, p. 74; Erdelen et al. 1999, p. 3). The selleck compound importance of forest resources will obviously differ according to the specific environment of the various Indonesian regions. For the Indonesian main island of Java, the original home of the term jamu, many resources for privately prepared traditional medicine come from the traditional family medical gardens (taman obat keluarga). Such private medical gardens are recently making a comeback and they are encouraged by the government as a cost-effective form of public health (Antons and Antons-Sutanto 2009, p. 369). Where production of jamu moves upstream and is carried out by commercial manufacturers, cooperation of the manufacturers with local farmers that cultivate the plants is also becoming increasingly common (Antons and Antons-Sutanto 2009, p. 365).