The development of biotechnologies and the emergence of an environmental concern in the early nineties converged in the need for a better use of biological diversity and genetic resources. The creation of a world wide framework for intellectual property rights on living matter or the management of biodiversity (Convention of Biological Diversity, CDB) have, since then, influenced the socialisation of biological matter in the countries of the South, in particular by giving an advantage to economic uses by creating a market for genes and biodiversity. This market for domestic as well as wild genetic resources seems less prominent today as local knowledge and traditional practices have been reconsidered and impose a participative type of management. The basic objective of this project is to analyze each type of actors and the institutions that participate in the definition of the appropriation regime of genetic resources by going beyond a comparison of what each team in this project has already been working on. In particular, the project will examine how this appropriation regime is corresponding to local knowledge and traditional practices.
