Page 114 - Daggabay Magazine Issue 9

Fields of Green for ALL • Collectively Reforming South African Cannabis Laws

5.2.1.4 Legacy Hubs Rights Commission (CIPC) and internationally
via the Madrid System of trademark registration.
Geographic areas or groups of people who produce Protection of a collective mark can also be
very special Cannabis – a specific area, a cultural achieved through recognition as a Geographical
identity, historical cultivation and/or transformation Indication, as per the World Trade Organization
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practices, local endemic genotypes/phenotypes, TRIPS Agreement . Both are international legal
or any specific traditional knowledge or traditional instruments to which South Africa has access.
cultural expression producing significantly
remarkable and distinctinctive Cannabis or 14. Protections From Bioprospecting
Cannabis products from their crops – can choose Hubs can collectively enjoy the fair and equitable
to restrict access to their Hub and this is called a sharing of benefits arising from the utilisation
Legacy Hub. of natural and genetic resources linked to their
Legacy Hubs allow for an enhanced level of community. This would allow local communities
protection in order to safeguard the community to seek protection from biopiracy by using
heritage, while providing tools to enable international bioprospecting regulations and
competitive participation in legal markets. Legacy treaties that are already in place. One example of
Hubs can upscale to a farming cooperative and this is via the dispositions of the Nagoya Protocol
provide for specific admission rules based on to the Convention on Biological Diversity (refer
geographical and/or legacy standards-compliance back to Section 4). It offers greater legal certainty
criteria. They can also opt in for community legal and transparency for both providers and users of
protections, such as collective marks, geographical genetic resources, to create incentives to conserve
indications and protections of local genetic and biological diversity, sustainably use its components,
natural resources. Legacy Hubs will also likely and further enhance the contribution of biological
offer the possibility of certifying the crops as “fair diversity to sustainable development and human
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trade” in the future, increasing economic potential wellbeing .
and recognition for the farmers. The Traditions
Bureau of the Office of the OmBUDsman grants 15. Farmers Cooperative
Legacy status to Hubs on the basis of documented Hubs can also choose to organise the cultivation
legacy Cannabis knowledge. Documentation of of Cannabis collectively via the establishment of
traditional Cannabis knowledge includes writing, cooperatives, a model that has existed in the South
picture taking, video recording or anything that African agricultural industry for decades. The
preserves it in an accessible form. Depending choice for a legacy Hub to become, additionally,
on how the documentation is carried out, it can a farmers cooperative requires careful attention
promote or damage a community’ interests, being paid to IP protection.
unless an adequate IP strategy is in place. The
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documentation should be created in a manner
that reflects community traditions, promoting 16. Closed membership
intergenerational knowledge sharing, which is In order to give effect to either IP protection or
created and held collectively. the cooperative model, legacy Hubs are allowed
to establish a list of criteria required to access
13. Collective Branding membership of the Hub. These community-
based restrictions to access allow legacy Hubs to
Hubs may establish brands that can be used restrict the sharing of benefits from local genetic
collectively by the affiliates of the Hub. This resources, to enforce standards linked to traditional
could be the registration of Collective marks and cultivation or processing (in the case of collective
related IP protections. This allows Legacy Hubs marks and GIs) or restrict access to farmers within
to access national protection for their collective the geographical reach of a cooperative.
mark via the Companies and Intellectual Property

70 CANNABIS IN SOUTH AFRICA • THE PEOPLE’S PLANT • A Full-Spectrum Manifesto For Policy Reform