Note: contains a number of hyperlinks, so viewers may have some difficulty following the presentation.

1. Distributing Benefits:
A Timeless Challenge
 Services and raw materials from natural
heritage scarce
 Prone to shifts in social and cultural norms
 Common pool resources require some special
attention
 Lots of issues

2. Why Benefit Distribution is Challenging
 Global debate about conservation
 Growing population with changing
consumption patterns
 Global level processes stress natural heritage
 Political and moral ideologies in flux
 Knowledge is expanding

3. Community Level
 Access is important for vulnerable populations
 Dependency on access to natural resources

4. Access to Nature’s Bounty
 It is a matter of justice or fair treatment

5. Framing the Challenge
 Framing natural resource problems is difficult
 Wicked and messy character
 Scientific disagreement on cause-effect
relationships
 Lack of social agreement on goals
 Inter-connected problems
 Can’t solve one problem without affecting others
 Don’t solve problems, but resolve them

6. Benefit Sharing and Benefit Distribution:
Different Decisions, Similar Questions
 Literature often unclear
 Convention on Biological Diversity unclear on
what it means
 Moral approach sees sharing as an act of
beneficence
 Policy arena sees sharing as a non-voluntary
act

7. How terms will be used in this presentation
 Benefit sharing – A fair exchange of value
between a willing seller (collective) and
willing buyer
 Benefit distribution – apportionment of
benefits received by a collective to members of
that collective

8. Social Justice Framing
 Social justice – objective is the basic structure
of society … way in which major social
institutions distribute fundamental rights and
duties … – Rawls 1971
 Institutions lose their legitimacy when
decisions are not just in the eyes of citizens
and residents

9. Three Types of Justice
Underpin Benefit Sharing and Distribution
 Commutative – fair exchange of value
 Distributive – apportionment of benefits and
burdens
 Procedural – the rules by which society makes
decisions

10. Commutative Justice
 Seeking a fair exchange – trades of equivalent
value
 The heart of benefit sharing
 Implemented through
 Prior informed consent
 Mutually agreed terms
 Policy

11. Distributive Justice
 How benefits and burdens are apportioned to
members of a collective
 The focus of benefit distribution
 Implemented through policy decisions
 Goal is fairness
 But what is fair?

12. Procedural Justice
 The rules by which society makes decisions
 Underlies both distributive and commutative
justice
 Implemented through good governance
principles, e.g.
 Transparency
 Inclusiveness
 Responsibility
 Accountability

13. Commutative Distributive
Justice Justice
Procedural Justice

14. Major Benefit Distribution Decisions
1. Current members or future members
2. Community or individual (household) scale
3. Goals of distribution
4. Capacity to make decisions

15. 1. Benefits distributed to current
or future members
 Provision of opportunities
 An issue of intergenerational equity

16. 2. Community or individual scale
 Community scale – basic services needed by
all members
 Clinic, school, library, police, fire
 Individual scale – individuals decide what to
do with benefits
 Raise income
 People spend income on their
sense of need

17. 3. Determining Distributive Justice Goals
 Equality – every member receives the same
apportionment
 Treats everyone the same regardless of
circumstances

18. 3. Determining Distributive Justice Goals
 Equity – benefits apportioned according to
merit or some other measure
 Favors those who engage collective activities or
who hold promise for improving collective quality
of life

19. 3. Determining Distributive Justice Goals
 Need – benefits apportioned to those most
vulnerable
 Poor
 Sick
 Dependency

20. 4. What Governance Capacities are
Needed
 Decision making – identifying who should get
what amount from whom
 Focus on procedural justice
 Understanding consequences
 Explicitness in policy development
 Administration – good business practices
 Accounting
 Paper trails
 Audits

21. Lessons Learned
 Ambiguous definitions of benefit sharing and
distribution stifle research and thwart effective
social discourse, creating confusion and
conflict

22. Lessons Learned
 Any benefit distribution mechanism will
discriminate against some group
 What is fair?

23. Lessons Learned
 What is “fair” is highly situational specific,
often contested, and depends on the interest
dominating discourse

24. Lessons Learned
 Building capacity to negotiate is critical to
creating opportunities for commutative justice.

25. Lessons Learned
 Building capacity to decide is critical to
distributive justice

26. Lessons Learned
 How benefits are created remains an important
question for science and policy and needs
debate for progress to be made

27. Conclusions
 Benefit distribution occurs within a complex
social-ecological system defying simplistic
solutions
 Research can help policy understand choices
and consequences
 Using a social justice perspective clarifies
goals and processes used in benefit distribution
policy

28. Thanks to:
Wayne Freimund, UM Bimo Nkhata, Monash
Patrick Graz, Polytechnic Karine Nuulimba, IRDNC
Selma Lendelvo, UNAM Oliver Pierson, MCC
Maxi Louis, NACSO Tyron Venn, UM
Alfons Mosimane, UNAM Chris Weaver WWF-Namibia

31. Convention on Biological Diversity
 Third objective:
“the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits
arising out of the utilization of genetic resources …”
 Bonn Guidelines
 Nagoya Protocol
Requires that “benefits arising from the utilization of
genetic resources … shall be shared in a fair and
equitable way with the Party providing such
resources …”

32. Definition Goal Benefit Shared Citation
Charitable Care for Human Aid, Technical
Giving Beings Assistance
Fair Exchange Commutative Justice Money, Artuso 2002
of Value Technology, Moran 2000
Training, Schroeder 2007
Knowledge
Mitigation Payment for Costs Money Mogera and
Incurred by Local Tsioumani 2010
Residents Baldus, et al. 2003
Incentive Encourage Money, Meat Johannesen and
Conservation Practice Skonhoft 2005
Compensation Restitution for Past Money, Shared Magome 2003
Injustice Decision Making Kepe et al. 2005
IUCN 2003

33. Benefit Sharing
Raw material may be a plant product, mineral, energy or
ecosystem-based service

34. Benefit Distribution

35. Natural Saleable
Heritage Raw Material Product
Revenues to Buy-Sell
Collective Agreement
Investment in Distribution of Collective
Conservation Revenues Members
Administration