Traditional knowledge
Traditional knowledge, indigenous knowledge, folk knowledge, and local knowledge generally refers to knowledge systems embedded in the cultural traditions of regional, indigenous, or local communities.
Traditional knowledge includes types of knowledge about traditional technologies of areas such as subsistence, midwifery, ethnobotany and ecological knowledge, traditional medicine, celestial navigation, craft skills, ethnoastronomy, climate, and others. These systems of knowledge are generally based on accumulations of empirical observation of and interaction with the environment, transmitted orally across generations.
The World Intellectual Property Organization and the United Nations include traditional cultural expressions in their respective definitions of indigenous knowledge. Traditional knowledge systems and cultural expressions exist in the forms of culture, stories, legends, folklore, rituals, songs, and laws, languages, songlines, dance, games, mythology, designs, visual art and architecture.
Characteristics and related concepts
A report of the International Council for Science Study Group on Science and Traditional Knowledge characterises traditional knowledge as:
a cumulative body of knowledge, know-how, practices and representations maintained and developed by peoples with extended histories of interaction with the natural environment. These sophisticated sets of understandings, interpretations and meanings are part and parcel of a cultural complex that encompasses language, naming and classification systems, resource use practices, ritual, spirituality and worldview.
Traditional knowledge typically distinguishes one community from another. In some communities, traditional knowledge takes on personal and spiritual meanings. Traditional knowledge can also reflect a community's interests. Some communities depend on their traditional knowledge for survival. Traditional knowledge regarding the environment, such as taboos, proverbs and cosmological knowledge systems, may provide a conservation ethos for biodiversity preservation. This is particularly true of traditional environmental knowledge, which refers to a "particular form of place-based knowledge of the diversity and interactions among plant and animal species, landforms, watercourses, and other qualities of the biophysical environment in a given place". As an example of a society with a wealth of traditional ecological knowledge, the South American Kayapo people, have developed an extensive classification system of ecological zones of the Amazonian tropical savannah to better manage the land.
Some social scientists conceptualise knowledge within a naturalistic framework and emphasize the gradation of recent knowledge into knowledge acquired over many generations. These accounts use terms like adaptively acquired knowledge, socially constructed knowledge, and other terms that emphasize the social aspects of knowledge. Local knowledge and traditional knowledge may be thought of as distinguished by the length of time they have existed, from decades to centuries or millennia.
On the other hand, indigenous and local communities themselves may perceive traditional knowledge very differently. The knowledge of indigenous and local communities is often embedded in a cosmology, and any distinction between "intangible" knowledge and physical things can become blurred. Indigenous peoples often say that indigenous knowledge is holistic, and cannot be meaningfully separated from the lands and resources available to them. Chamberlin writes of a Gitksan elder from British Columbia confronted by a government land-claim: "If this is your land," he asked, "where are your stories?"
Indigenous and local communities often do not have strong traditions of ownership over knowledge that resemble the modern forms of private ownership. Many have clear traditions of custodianship over knowledge, and customary law may guide who may use different kinds of knowledge at particular times and places, and specify obligations that accompany the use of knowledge. For example, a hunter might be permitted to kill an animal only to feed the community, and not to feed himself. From an indigenous perspective, misappropriation and misuse of knowledge may be offensive to traditions, and may have spiritual and physical repercussions in indigenous cosmological systems. Consequently, indigenous and local communities argue that others' use of their traditional knowledge warrants respect and sensitivity. Critics of traditional knowledge, however, see such demands for "respect" as an attempt to prevent unsubstantiated beliefs from being subjected to the same scrutiny as other knowledge-claims. This has particular significance for environmental management because the spiritual component of "traditional knowledge" can justify any activity, including the unsustainable harvesting of resources.
Terminology
Traditional Knowledge and Traditional Cultural Expressions are both types of Indigenous Knowledge, according to the definitions and terminology used in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and by the World Intellectual Property Organization. While often used synonymously, the term "traditional knowledge " is most associated with traditional medicine and botany, while "indigenous knowledge " is most associated with cultural issues and sustainable development, and "local knowledge " with environmental issues.The phrase "traditional cultural expressions" is used by WIPO to refer to "any form of artistic and literary expression in which traditional culture and knowledge are embodied. They are transmitted from one generation to the next, and include handmade textiles, paintings, stories, legends, ceremonies, music, songs, rhythms and dance."
WIPO negotiates international legal protection of traditional cultural expressions through the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge, and Folklore. During the committee's sessions, representatives of indigenous and local communities host panels relating to the preservation of traditional knowledge.
Leading international authority on Indigenous cultural and intellectual property, Australian lawyer Terri Janke, says that within Australian Indigenous communities, "the use of the word 'traditional' tends not to be preferred as it implies that Indigenous culture is locked in time".
Property rights
International attention has turned to intellectual property laws to preserve, protect, and promote traditional knowledge. In 1992, the Convention on Biological Diversity recognized the value of traditional knowledge in protecting species, ecosystems and landscapes, and incorporated language regulating access to it and its use. It was soon urged that implementing these provisions would require revision of international intellectual property agreements.This became even more pressing with the adoption of the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which established rules for creating and protecting intellectual property that could be interpreted to conflict with the agreements made under the CBD. In response, the states who had ratified the CBD requested the World Intellectual Property Organization to investigate the relationship between intellectual property rights, biodiversity and traditional knowledge. WIPO began this work with a fact-finding mission in 1999. Considering the issues involved with biodiversity and the broader issues in TRIPs, WIPO established the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore. WIPO Lex provides support for collections of laws concerning Traditional Knowledge.
The period of the early 1990s to the Millennium was also characterized by the rapid rise in global civil society. The high-level Brundtland Report recommended a change in development policy that allowed for direct community participation and respected local rights and aspirations. Indigenous peoples and others had successfully petitioned the United Nations to establish a Working Group on Indigenous Populations that made two early surveys on treaty rights and land rights. These led to a greater public and governmental recognition of indigenous land and resource rights, and the need to address the issue of collective human rights, as distinct from the individual rights of existing human rights law.
The collective human rights of indigenous and local communities has been increasingly recognized – such as in the International Labour Organization Convention 169 and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Rio Declaration, endorsed by the presidents and ministers of the majority of the countries of the world, recognized indigenous and local communities as distinct groups with special concerns that should be addressed by states.
Initial concern was over the territorial rights and traditional resource rights of these communities. Indigenous peoples soon showed concern for the misappropriation and misuse of their "intangible" knowledge and cultural heritage. Indigenous peoples and local communities have resisted, among other things: the use of traditional symbols and designs as mascots, derivative arts and crafts; the use or modification of traditional songs; the patenting of traditional uses of medicinal plants; and the copyrighting and distribution of traditional stories.
Indigenous peoples and local communities have sought to prevent the patenting of traditional knowledge and resources where they have not given express consent. They have sought for greater protection and control over traditional knowledge and resources. Certain communities have also sought to ensure that their traditional knowledge is used equitably - according to restrictions set by their traditions, or requiring benefit sharing for its use according to benefits which they define.
Three broad approaches to protect traditional knowledge have been developed. The first emphasizes protecting traditional knowledge as a form of cultural heritage. The second looks at protection of traditional knowledge as a collective human right. The third, taken by the WTO and WIPO, investigates the use of existing or novel sui generis measures to protect traditional knowledge.
Currently, only a few nations offer explicit sui generis protection for traditional knowledge. However, a number of countries are still undecided as to whether law should give traditional knowledge deference. Indigenous peoples have shown ambivalence about the intellectual property approach. Some have been willing to investigate how existing intellectual property mechanisms can protect traditional knowledge. Others believe that an intellectual property approach may work, but will require more radical and novel forms of intellectual property law. Others believe that the intellectual property system uses concepts and terms that are incompatible with traditional cultural concepts, and favors the commercialization of their traditions, which they generally resist. Many have argued that the form of protection should refer to collective human rights to protect their distinct identities, religions and cultural heritage.