Protegendo o Conhecimento Tradicional em Moçambique: Quadros jurídicos e institucionais vigentes

The report analyzes Mozambique's legal landscape regarding traditional knowledge (TK), highlighting a fragmented system where protection is often indirect. While the 2007 ABS Regulation (Decree No. 19/2007) is the primary tool for biodiversity-related TK, it faces implementation challenges and is currently under revision. Other frameworks, including the Industrial Property Code and Copyright Law, offer limited or specific protections like geographical indications. The document emphasizes the role of community participation in natural resource management and identifies poverty, weak community institutions, and lack of legal awareness as major barriers to effective TK protection.

• Mozambique lacks functional regulatory frameworks specifically dedicated to the protection of traditional knowledge associated with biological resources, although a favorable political climate is currently driving revisions to existing laws.
• Decree No. 19/2007 (Regulation on Access and Benefit Sharing) is the primary legislation for protecting biodiversity-related traditional knowledge, but it predates the Nagoya Protocol and lacks comprehensive frameworks required by that international agreement.
• The 2023 Law on Forests and Wildlife (Law No. 17/2023) protects traditional practices by exempting 'personal consumption'—defined as traditional consumption essential to community needs—from taxation and allowing the use of protected species for traditional food, medicine, and cultural practices.
• Community Conservation Areas (ACC) allow local communities to manage public domain land for the conservation of natural resources, including sacred forests and sites of cultural importance, and enable them to negotiate commercial use contracts with the private sector.
• The Industrial Property Code does not provide exclusive protection for traditional knowledge but allows for the registration of geographical indications (IG) or denominations of origin for products with unique regional characteristics, such as the 'Cabrito de Tete' granted in 2018.
• The Copyright Law (Law No. 9/2022) recognizes 'expressions of folklore' as the property of the practicing community, though this has not yet been effectively applied to traditional knowledge regarding biodiversity use.
• Traditional medicine is guided by the 2004 National Traditional Medicine Policy, but the subsequent legislative process was interrupted around 2015; currently, a new holistic health law is being developed to incorporate alternative treatments.
• Academic research has produced rare but successful benefit-sharing agreements, such as a partnership between the Pedagogical University, AMETRAMO, and European universities that patented an anti-tumor treatment from the Tabernaemontana elegans tree with financial gains shared with the traditional practitioners.
• Significant barriers to the protection of traditional knowledge include extreme poverty, weak community institutions, a lack of legal awareness (due to non-translation of laws into local languages), and inefficient benefit-sharing mechanisms.

APA

Natural Justice (n.d.). Protegendo o Conhecimento Tradicional em Moçambique: Quadros jurídicos e institucionais vigentes. https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Mozambique-Traditional-Knowledge-Legal-Framework-REPORT-Designed-Portugues.pdf

Chicago

Natural Justice. Protegendo o Conhecimento Tradicional em Moçambique: Quadros jurídicos e institucionais vigentes. n.d. https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Mozambique-Traditional-Knowledge-Legal-Framework-REPORT-Designed-Portugues.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Natural Justice |title=Protegendo o Conhecimento Tradicional em Moçambique: Quadros jurídicos e institucionais vigentes |url=https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Mozambique-Traditional-Knowledge-Legal-Framework-REPORT-Designed-Portugues.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{naturaljusticendprotegendo, author = {{Natural Justice}}, title = {{Protegendo o Conhecimento Tradicional em Moçambique: Quadros jurídicos e institucionais vigentes}}, institution = {Natural Justice}, url = {https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Mozambique-Traditional-Knowledge-Legal-Framework-REPORT-Designed-Portugues.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }