The Tropical Indigenous Ethnobotany Centre (TIEC) was established in 2010 through consultation with Traditional Owners (TOs) from north Queensland and other interested parties. It is unique as it is the first of its kind in Australia and is a concept initiated and driven by TOs. The aim of TIEC is to support TOs to record and document, manage, and protect and sustain their cultural knowledge on the use of plants.
This presentation will highlight the importance of collection, documentation, and preservation of Indigenous Biocultural Knowledge. It will focus on protection of Indigenous knowledge, Intellectual property, protocols, and agreements, including the recent legislation of the updated Queensland’s Biodiscovery Act (2004), using our current project ‘Discovering novel drug lead molecules for inflammatory bowel disease from Australian Aboriginal medicinal plants’ funded NHMRC Ideas Grant as an example.