The Nagoya Protocol encourages academics, government bureaucrats, and traditional owners to look at how customary law might be utilised within state law frameworks to improve and resolve “access and benefit‐sharing” processes. This paper examines and reviews legal, anthropological, and historical texts relating to biodiversity and associated knowledge to explore Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples’ customary laws and governance. Understanding the broader place of Indigenous customs, laws, and belief, as sitting on the oral–written continuum and expressed through the Dreaming, provides the foundation for understanding Indigenous customary laws as they relate to plants and animals. The paper highlights, through examples, that plants and animals may be regarded as totemic species, that are rights controlled and/or relational to specific individuals or families. Looking towards native title, community protocols and a “competent cultural authority,” the paper seeks out tools which might expand the regulatory toolbox and help connect Indigenous law and state law relating to Indigenous knowledge and totemic species.

中文翻译：

---

认识图腾植物物种的土著习惯法：挑战和途径

《名古屋议定书》鼓励学者，政府官僚和传统所有者研究如何在州法律框架内利用习惯法来改善和解决“获取和惠益分享”程序。本文研究并审查了与生物多样性和相关知识有关的法律，人类学和历史文本，以探索土著和托雷斯海峡岛人民的习惯法和治理。通过口头梦见的理解，了解土著习俗，法律和信仰的更广泛位置，这是通过梦境表达的，为理解土著习惯法与动植物的关系奠定了基础。本文通过示例强调指出，动植物可被视为图腾物种，受权利控制和/或与特定个人或家庭有关的权利。着眼于土著人的头衔，社区规约和“主管文化权威”，本文寻求可以扩展监管工具箱并帮助将与土著知识和图腾物种有关的土著法律和州法律联系起来的工具。