A Yanadi healer. 
The study carried out by the International Institute of Environment and Development, London, suggests that these communities be given community rights and not individual rights over the forests in order to sustain and recognize their traditional knowledge.
The Yanadis of Chittor district in Andhra Pradesh have become very poor farm labourers following relocation from their forest land, with only limited access to the forest. Though they have specialised knowledge on snakebites, it is not recognised by India's systems of medicine, says IIED's Krystyna Swiderska who coordinated a larger study of customary approaches to protecting and sharing traditional knowledge and biological resources in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
"Their knowledge is on the verge of extinction. Only its formal recognition by the state and free access for the Yanadi to their traditional forest areas can revive it," she told Nature India.
Swiderska says the government and local 'experts' feel that there is no point in recognising the Yanadis' traditional knowledge since they are largely illiterate and therefore unable to understand modern medicine. Local initiatives such as developing traditional knowledge registers or setting up healers associations have failed to do this. According to study coordinator S. Vedavathy of the Herbal Folklore Research Centre, Tirupati, who conducted the study on the Yanadis, the Tribal Forest Rights Act is of no use to them because they were relocated about three decades ago and are semi-nomadic.
Through their reliance on forests the Yanadis have developed extensive knowledge of bio-resources, medicinal and aromatic plants and wild foods, including unique remedies for snake bite, paralysis and skin diseases. The Yanadi youth, however, have largely lost interest in learning about their knowledge and the authority of elders has been undermined by the appointment of younger headmen in panchayats by the government.
"The Yanadi tribe needs community rights to the forest and not individual rights. The sacred places and sacred groves are part of their culture. It is difficult to alienate them from their motherland — the forest," she said. Free access to the forest and recognition of their rich traditional knowledge only can make them sustain their culture and heritage.
The project also involved a study in the Eastern Himalayas of India — with Lepchas and Limbus — in an area of important rice diversity. It found a significant decline in traditional varieties in the last decade or so, partly due to cheaper rice products available and smaller landholdings, and globalisation changing the aspirations of youth. There is very little awareness of the threat of biopiracy in the area, and of the potential value of TK and related products. There is also no existing registration of local varieties, Swiderska pointed out.
Both case studies have found a largely unfavourable policy and legal environment for protecting the rights of communities over their traditional knowledge and recognising customary laws and practices that sustain and protect this knowledge at local level.
"We also did some work with adivasi farmers in Bastar Chattisgarh, where a critical issue was the refusal of the Agricultural University in Raipur to allow communities access to its rice germplasm collection - which had been collected from the area in the 70s," Swiderska said.
It should be an urgent priority for the Indian government to ensure participation of traditional knowledge holders in decisions over access to their knowledge, the study says. "India's policy, legal and institutional set up for biodiversity and traditional knowledge is very centralised and closed to these communities. The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library and the National Biodiversity Act are examples of this," Swiderska said. There are no local community representatives on the National Biodiversity Board and on most State Biodiversity Boards.
The study observed that there was an urgent need to reform national seed and patent laws to ensure farmers rights over their traditional varieties. The findings come ahead of a meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization that aims to develop rules for protecting rights over traditional knowledge, such as indigenous knowledge about medicinal plants, which conventional intellectual property laws do not cover.
The researchers warn that the loss of such customary approaches would lead to a loss of biological diversity and traditional knowledge and would limit the abilities of poor communities to adapt to climate change through, for instance, sharing climate-resilient plant varieties.
