Traditional knowledge

As traditional knowledge ( sometimes referred to as " indigenous knowledge " ) is referred to such knowledge in the course of further development of the international system for the protection of intellectual property, which is known to a certain group of people and of this group is (mostly oral) preserved and transmitted.

A precise definition has not yet been agreed and is currently the subject of a Working Committee of WIPO. The current state of the negotiations of the draft contract-like text is present in both the definition of traditional knowledge and the consequent legal positions are to be regulated.

Definition finding

Despite the outstanding (legal) definition, the following characteristics of traditional knowledge can be determined:

• Knowledge of the healing properties of plants ( botanical and medical knowledge), knowledge of food crops, soil properties, environmentally friendly and efficient cropping strategies and biological control
• The origins of the knowledge contents lie in the distant past and can not be traced
• Much of the knowledge generated through observation and experience and is not questioned or understood analytically
• A smaller part is the result of well-planned, traditional "science"
• The knowledge of subject due to the changing environmental conditions of constant adaptation and development ( "traditional" should not therefore be understood as " unchangeable " )
• In general, oral tradition of knowledge content
• In particular, indigenous peoples are carriers of traditional knowledge. A much lesser extent, parts of the population of industrial society (eg Swiss alpine farmers, Frisian fishermen )
• Hazard of knowledge through destructive cultural change: in particular destruction of traditional social structures, replacement of traditional healers and loss of indigenous languages.

The Austrian Ministry of Life describes simplifies the Traditional Knowledge, as follows:

• Connected to a local community that identifies with the traditional culture and
• Is seen by the community as traditional knowledge.

Background

According to the anthropologist Roy Rappaport and Gerardo Reichel - Dolmatoff traditional knowledge based on knowledge models that are not value-neutral, detailed and logically describe how modern science, but packaged as myths, with the behavior of human influence to an efficient adaptation to the environment to achieve and maintain the stability of society.

Reichel - Dolmatoff writes, for example, the knowledge of the Tucano Indians: " Such phenomena such as parasitism, symbiosis, commensalism and other relationships between species have been well observed by them and are highlighted as potential methods of adaptation. "

While knowledge of " home remedies ", crops and farming methods are generally known to all members of local communities, has only a limited group of persons of specialists (eg, shamans, healers, midwives ) on more extensive medical knowledge.

Traditional knowledge is closely connected with age-old farming practices.

Modern benefits

For the global market economy, traditional knowledge is an important source of innovation (eg in the pharmaceutical industry). Since the early 1990s there have been efforts to protect such knowledge to the profits to involve the ( indigenous ) Author of eventual profits, which go back to such knowledge. However, so far there are still binding legal foundations, so that the industry generally achieved high profits, while the benefit to the original carrier fails.

Austria has registered the knowledge of traditional foods around the world as the first country.