The report urges changes to international law to eliminate what it calls "a modern absurdity" which forces the holders of ancient secrets to disclose them publicly if they want to protect them.

To decide whether a new product seeking patent protection is novel or based upon traditional knowledge, officials require free access to indigenous secrets, according to the report by the Tokyo-based UNU Institute of Advanced Studies.

While several countries have inventoried traditional knowledge to prevent its commercial theft, some cultures keep such information tightly guarded, passing it from one generation to the next through codes of conduct and customary law.

The existing rules are an affront to the culture and customs of many indigenous peoples and can lead to injustices, the report says.

It cites as an example a legal challenge to a patent over a rainforest plant in which US patent regulators refused to accept the oral evidence of an Amazon shaman about his people's traditional knowledge of the plant's healing properties.

"The challenge for the world community is to devise a process to prevent the piracy of traditional knowledge without jeopardizing the cultural integrity and ways of indigenous peoples," says the report's author, Brendan Tobin.

He recommends allowing oral evidence of traditional knowledge, establishing means for such evidence to be given confidentially and providing for restricted access to confidential databases.

The report was released on the sidelines of a major UN conference here on the Convention on Biodiversity, which seeks to protect the world's animal and plant life from the ravages of human development.

The UNU says in a related report that managers of parks and other protected areas require training to guard against the threat of biopiracy and to help ensure that the exploitation of genetic riches in their custody creates local benefits.

TERRA.WIRE