Indigenous Sovereignty

CARE principles, FPIC, Local Contexts Labels, and the CARI advisory council.

# CARE Principles

CARE principles are the strategic moat no competitor can replicate quickly. iNaturalist, Wildlife Insights, eBird, and PlantNet have no operationalized FPIC framework. Building one takes years of relationship capital that large platforms will not invest.

Principle	Meaning	Rastrum Implementation
C — Collective Benefit	Data should benefit Indigenous communities	Community owns their data; analytics shared back
A — Authority to Control	Communities control access and use	INPI territory detection triggers BC Provenance Notice automatically
R — Responsibility	Ensure ethical relationships	CARI advisory council with veto power; honoraria from operating budget
E — Ethics	Minimize harm, maximize benefit	No publication without community approval in consulta-covered territories

# Local Contexts Labels

Rastrum integrates the Local Contexts Hub API v2 for culturally appropriate data labeling. GBIF was the first biodiversity database to pilot this integration (2022, Manaaki Whenua New Zealand) — Rastrum follows that pattern.

TK Labels (Traditional Knowledge)

TK Attribution, TK Clan, TK Family, TK Non-Commercial, TK Culturally Sensitive, TK Secret/Sacred, TK Seasonal, TK Verified, and 8+ additional labels for managing traditional knowledge provenance and access.

BC Labels (Biocultural)

BC Provenance, BC Consent-NonCommercial, BC Consent-Verified, BC Multiple Communities, BC Outreach, BC Research — for managing biocultural heritage and community consent.

# CARI — Consejo Asesor de Recursos Indigenas

The Rastrum Indigenous Advisory Council provides governance oversight for all features involving traditional knowledge and indigenous community data.

7-9 seats, minimum 5 Indigenous members

Representation: Oaxaca (Zapoteco, Mixteco, Mixe), Yucatan (Maya), Chiapas (Tsotsil/Tseltal), Puebla/Veracruz (Nahua)

3-year staggered terms, quarterly bilingual meetings

Veto power on TK features, dataset releases from consulta-covered territories, and commercial partnerships

Honoraria paid from operating budget (not project budget — avoids extraction optics)

# Supported Languages

Language	Speakers (Mexico)	Region	Target
Zapoteco	~500K	Oaxaca (Sierra Norte, Valles Centrales)	v0.1 Pilot
Mixteco	~500K	Oaxaca, Guerrero, Puebla	v1.0
Nahuatl	1.65M	Central Mexico	v1.0
Maya Yucateco	774K	Yucatan, Campeche, Quintana Roo	v1.5
Tsotsil / Tseltal	~1M	Chiapas	v1.5

Pre-recorded audio prompts for critical flows — no native TTS coverage exists for these languages. Partner with INALI, UNAM linguistics, and CIESAS for translation and audio production.

# Nagoya Protocol Compliance

Mexico ratified the Nagoya Protocol on May 16, 2012 (5th country, first megadiverse). Photographs, audio, and occurrence records are generally not genetic resources in the strict Nagoya sense — a pure observation platform largely falls outside Nagoya's triggers.

Risk triggers

When Rastrum collects or displays Indigenous names, medicinal/ritual uses, or associated traditional knowledge (aTK), this requires Prior Informed Consent (PIC) + Mutually Agreed Terms (MAT) + IRCC on the ABS Clearing-House.

Practical guidance: Treat ethnobotany as a v2+ feature gated on a completed FPIC process with at least one community partner. Mexico's domestic ABS law is still stalled (Ley General de Biodiversidad, 2016-present).