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Box 4: Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Various Definitions
Tribal Peoples: tribal peoples in independent countries whose social, cultural and economic conditions
distinguish them from other sections of the national community, and whose status is regulated wholly or partially
by their own customs or traditions or by special laws or regulations (ILO Convention 169).
Indigenous Peoples: peoples in independent countries who are regarded as indigenous on account of their
descent from the populations who inhabited the country, or a geographical region to which the country belongs,
at the time of conquest, or colonisation, or the establishment of present state boundaries, and who, irrespective of
their legal status, retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions (ILO
Convention 169).
Indigenous Cultural Communities or Indigenous Peoples: a homogeneous society identified by selfascription
and ascription by others which has continuously lived as a community on communally bounded and
defined territory, sharing common bonds of language, customs, traditions and other distinctive cultural traits, and
which through resistance to the political, social and cultural inroads of colonization, became historically
differentiated from the majority of Filipinos (Department Administrative Order, No 96-20, Section 2.1
‘implementing Rules and Regulations for Executive Order 247, the Philippines’).
Indigenous and Local Communities: indigenous, Afro-American and local communities are human groups
whose social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish them from other sectors of the national community,
who are governed totally or partially by their own customs or traditions or special legislation, and who,
regardless of their legal status, conserve their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions or parts
thereof (Decision 391, Andean Pact).
Local Community: a group of people having a long standing social organisation that binds them together
whether in a defined area or otherwise; it shall include indigenous peoples and local populations, and shall where
appropriate refer to any organisation duly registered under the provisions of this act to represent its interest
(Community Intellectual Rights Act, 1994, Third World Network).
Locality/Local Community (in the context of local plant variety protection): A sui juris person, residing and
commonly inheriting and passing over culture continually, who takes part in the conservation or development of
the (local) plant variety (Plant Varieties Protection Act, B.E. 2542 (1999), Kingdom of Thailand).
Source: Adapted version of Laird, S. (ed) (2002) Biodiversity and Traditional Knowledge: Equitable
Partnerships in Practice. Earthscan, London; and Plant Varieties Protection Act, B.E. 2542 (1999), Kingdom of
Thailand.
The country of Thailand contains a considerable ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious
mosaic, despite the imposition, from the time of King Chulalongkorn (1868-1910), of a
unifying language and culture with the aim of creating national unity. Compared to some of
its neighbours though it contains a more homogenous ethno-cultural mix and this is reflected
in the fact that 95% of the population are declared Buddhists (Theravada Buddhism) and more
than 90% have a Thai language as their mother tongue (Kermel-Torres, D. 2004).
In drafting their Acts, Thailand has deliberately not used the term ‘indigenous’ because of the
ambiguity in many of the definitions. Rather it has used and defined the term ‘local
community’ in the PVP Act, and there are references to traditional or local communities in the
Constitution, Traditional Medicines Act, and Community Forests Bill. 44 The term indigenous
is particularly problematic in Thailand because it could be broadly interpreted to include all
Thais and related ethnic groups, as Thailand has never been colonised by an external power.
Using the quite broad ILO Convention 169 definition, one could imply that the bulk of the
population of Thailand are actually ‘indigenous peoples’, and that ‘tribal peoples’ would
adequately describe the ‘hill tribes’ or ‘chao khao’ minority groups that make up a small
percentage of the population and primarily reside in the North of the country.
44 In July 2005 the Joint Parliamentary Committee working on the Community Forests Bill opted not to define
‘indigenous peoples’ because it was perceived to be too problematic (Srethasirote, Personal Communication July
2005).
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