TDWG2026
Home / Talks / SAL B
talk · Tuesday 22 September · 09:15–⁠09:30 · SAL B

Toward RASD Implementation in Brazil: Integrating Conservation, Open Data, and Traditional Knowledge Safeguards

Clara Baringo Fonseca · To see or not to see - that is the question. Managing restricted access data (RASD)

Recording time 34:55–40:45Open on Vimeo ↗

Summaries and key moments are machine-produced. Check the recording for the speaker’s exact words.

The short versionProtecting traditional knowledge requires community-controlled, attribute-level and semi-restricted access, not just hiding species locations.

Overview

What this was about

Clara Baringo Fonseca explained that Brazil's national biodiversity information system currently handles sensitive data only by generalisation, informationWithheld and splitting data into private and public datasets. She identified three areas needing distinct rules: endangered species, ongoing research, and socio-biodiversity data and traditional knowledge. Focusing on the last, she argued that communities must control their data, that it is often attributes such as uses, local names or preparation methods rather than the species that must be restricted, and that semi-restricted access (for example for the patent office) and traceability are needed.

Why it matters. Brings Indigenous and traditional knowledge into the RASD discussion and shows that restriction needs go beyond location obfuscation of threatened species.

Key ideas

In the room

  • Brazil's system is growing fast and is trying to repatriate Brazilian data held in repositories outside the country.
  • Currently only dataGeneralizations, informationWithheld and separate private/public datasets are used.
  • Three topic areas with different risks and access rules: endangered species (hunting, trafficking), ongoing research, and socio-biodiversity data/traditional knowledge (misappropriation via biopiracy).
  • International law is not enough; systems must carry community-defined conditions at data level and within a legal framework.
  • Traditional territories are underrepresented in repositories, but without restriction mechanisms there is little point collecting more data; FAIR and CARE principles should both apply.
  • Needs include appropriate public metadata, community authorisation of what is shared, semi-restricted access (e.g. patent office can check whether a species has associated traditional knowledge) and traceability.
  • Use cases: religious or sacred use (kept only for preservation), species use (attributes restricted), and hunting inside protected areas that managers want to monitor.
Jump in

Notable moments

In their words

Transcript

Automatically generated captions can contain mistakes, especially in names and technical terms. Times are relative to the room recording.

Read the transcript ↓
Loading transcript…
Keep exploring

Related talks.

See the map ↗
talk · 21 Sept · 15:15–⁠15:30 · Aula

Extending Darwin Core to Represent Sociobiodiversity and Traditional Knowledge

Representing traditional knowledge in biodiversity standards needs new terms, knowledge-centred (not species-centred) models, and careful governance of who holds and publishes the data.

Clara Baringo Fonseca
talk · 22 Sept · 11:45–⁠12:00 · SAL C

Modernizing Brazil's taxonomic backbone: how ChecklistBank supports biodiversity and genetic heritage systems

ChecklistBank lets a small national node assemble one consistent taxonomic backbone for legal, portal and permitting systems.

Clara Baringo Fonseca
talk · 22 Sept · 09:30–⁠09:45 · SAL B

The Edge: Insights into problems that arise from implementing data solutions for restricted access (sensitive) species data

Plan RASD treatments carefully, because taxonomy, data errors and associated records can silently defeat simple rules like 'generalise to 10 km'.

Cameron Slatyer
Programme abstract

Toward RASD Implementation in Brazil: Integrating Conservation, Open Data, and Traditional Knowledge Safeguards

Clara Baringo Fonseca

Brazil, a megadiverse country with extraordinary biological and sociocultural diversity, faces complex challenges in managing and publishing Restricted Access Species Data (RASD). Open-access platforms strengthen science, conservation, and policy, but also amplify risks of misuse of sensitive information. Sensitivity varies across taxonomic groups and use contexts. Key concerns include illegal hunting, wildlife trafficking, predatory collection of commercially valuable species, and pressure on threatened, endemic, or low-density populations. A further dimension involves species linked to associated traditional knowledge (ATK) of Indigenous peoples and local communities. Frameworks such as the CBD, Nagoya Protocol, ILO Convention 169, and Brazil's Law 13.123/2015 require free, prior, and informed consent for use of these resources-rarely met in practice. They provide important safeguards but also reveal limits: fragmented implementation, weak traceability, and uneven recognition of community protocols. Paradoxically, traditional territories remain a critical gap in national repositories, despite their recognized role in conservation. Precise occurrence data are essential for monitoring, enforcement, and policy, producing tension between FAIR and CARE principles and effective protection. We discuss challenges faced by Brazilian data providers in handling RASD and present approaches for differentiated access, including spatial generalization, multi-level sensitivity classification, and controlled access to precise coordinates. The work aligns with TDWG efforts on vocabularies and metadata extensions for RASD, advancing interoperable solutions that balance transparency, conservation, ATK protection, and visibility of traditional communities in biodiversity science.

Submitted to the conference programme before the talk, so the talk itself may differ.