Traditional knowledge
To investigate how TK can be legally protected, it is necessary first to explain what TK actually is.The term is understood, misunderstood and applied in a confusing variety of ways. These assumptions relate to:
- the identity and nature of TK holding societies
-the relationship between TK and other forms of knowledge
-property rights in TK holding societies
-authorship in Traditional societies
-Folklore and TK and the public domain
Nature of TK
TK commonly refers to knowledge associated with the environment rather than knowledge related to for eg artworks, handicrafts and other cultural works and expressions (which tend to be considered as elements of folklore).
According to experts, TK is
A body of knowledge built by a group of people through generations living in close contact with nature. It includes a system of
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It is thus, Best to avoid a fixed and dogmatic idea of what TK holders and their communities look like.
Because TK is difficult to define, some experts have tried to clarify its meaning, either by describing what it is not rather than what it is.
Johnson, an expert identifies several ways that TK is generated, recorded and transmitted which makes TK completely different to western scientific knowledge:
Is recorded and transmitted orally
Is learned through observation and hands on experience
Is based on the understanding that the elements of matter have a life force
Does not view human life as superior to other animate and inanimate elements but believes that all life forms have kinship and are interdependent
Is holistic rather that reductionist
Is based on data generated by resource users themselves rather than specialized group of researchers.
Is rooted in a social context that sees the world in terms of social and spiritual relations between all life