Title: RELIGION BULLETIN-AUSTRALIA: Aborigines Want Their Cultural Heritage Copyrighted By Sumegha Agarwal SYDNEY, May 18 (IPS) - For generations, outsiders have turned some of the Aborigines' most sacred symbols into trimmings on the most profane objects, and have made money using the teachings of indigenous healers with little acknowledgement. But if the current efforts of the Aborigines succeed, the chances of such incidences being repeated will soon be next to nil. This August, the Indigenous Reference Group (IRG) is scheduled to submit its final report on the protection of the Aborigines' intellectual property rights to the Aboriginal and Torres Staits Islanders Commission (ATSIC). The Commission, in turn, will present the recommendations to the federal government. The report will be the culmination of a two-year effort by the IRG to assess what aspects of the heritage of Australia's indigenous peoples should be protected and how this could be brought about. The ATSIC established the IRG primarily for that purpose in 1996, following a growing clamor among Aborigines over what many in the community said was the exploitation of their cultural heritage by non-indigenous people for commercial purposes. Of Australia's 18 million people, less than two percent belong to the indigenous community. ''The value non-Aboriginal people attach to our heritage is governed by the dollar,'' says Ian Delaney, IRG chair and ATSIC director. ''(But) to us, it's spiritual, (it's) our connection to our land, our knowledge.'' Indeed, Aboriginal art often is not so much an expression of feelings and thoughts by an individual, but a profound religious declaration. Yet, as Austral Council of Arts indigenous arts administrator Fay Nelson noted recently, many Aboriginal motifs that have deep spiritual meaning have ended up decoratng the most common of objects like coasters. This was ''painful to see'', she said, adding that such indigenous symbols should be copyrighted by their rightful owners so that outsiders would be forced to get permission for their use. But Aborigines are after the protection of not only their art. Community leaders say they are also seeking to copyright their language, as well as the traditional knowledge of their healers on the use of certain flora for medicinal purposes. This is apparently due to perceived slights to the community by non-Aborigines such as that done by no less than the state of Western Australia in the 1990s. At that time, the state government had licensed the pharmaceutical firm Amrad to develop an anti-AIDS drug from the smokebush, a plant that Aborigines ad long used for healing various ills. Not only did the indigenous community fail to profit financially from the arrangement, however, there seemed to be no acknowledgement of its contribution to modern medicine. The IRG is supposed to come up with suggestions on how such incidents can be avoided in the future. But as it observed in its preliminary report, 'Our Culture, Our Future', which was released late last year, many existing laws that directly affect the intelectual property rights of the country's indigenous peoples are wanting in terms of addressing the issue of communal and traditional ownership. According to Solicitor Terri Janke, who wrote 'Our Culture' and is currently preparing the IRG's final report, the main issue was on how to reconcile two different legal views: the indigenous and the non-indigenous. Still, many Aborigine leaders like Delaney are confident that the two can be reconciled. Delaney says relevant amendments can be made in the present laws to protect indigenous cultural heritage, and believes that the federal government will be amenable to any recommendations by the ATSIC. At the same time, he asserts: ''This recognition should be part of the reconciliation process to recognise what really happened in Australia 200 years back. Indigenous heritage and people need to be dealt with respect and dignity. It's not hard to do.'' To be sure, Australia's indigenous peoples have felt themselves under siege since Europeans first stepped on their land in 1788. The Aborigine population was subsequently decimated, with survivors turned into virtual outcasts who had no rights. It was only in 1967 that the Aborigines gained full citizenship rights. Australia's indigenous peoples have since trid the legal route to regain what they had lost, including land now being exploited for farming and mining. Cases regarding Aboriginal art have also reached the courts. One of the more popular cases concerned the illegal reproduction of work by Aboriginal artists on carpets that were made in Vietnam. Three of the artists and the public trustee of the Northern Territory on behalf of five deceased artists sued for breach of copyright. In 1994, federal court judge John Von Doussa granted the petitioners a collective award of 180,000 Australian dollars. More importantly, he also recognised the communal ownership of indigenous arts and cultural expression. In 'Our Culture', the IRG has suggested that a national trust run by prominent Aborigine be responsible for granting permission on the use of indigenous art, as well as collecting fees for the use of Aboriginal symbols. The money, it said, would then be channelled into projects for the indigenous community. For radio presenter Nancia Guivarra, a Torres Straits Islander, the appropriation of indigenous intellectual property is an ''attitudinal problem''. ''We don't matter,'' she says, ''we have not mattered.'' But she indicates that the time has come for change. ''It's the last frontier of dispossession. If we can't keep this (for) ourselves, then what's left?'' (END/IPS/AP-PR-CR/SA/CB/RAL/98) Origin: Amsterdam/RELIGION BULLETIN-AUSTRALIA/ ---- [c] 1998, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS) All rights reserved May not be reproduced, reprinted or posted to any system or service outside of the APC networks, without specific permission from IPS. This limitation includes distribution via Usenet News, bulletin board systems, mailing lists, print media and broadcast. For information about cross- posting, send a message to . For information about print or broadcast reproduction please contact the IPS coordinator at . Conf?