Essay On Traditional Knowledge

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1. Knowledge, leading to new discoveries and inventions, has been the most important factor of development since the evolution of human beings. In the modern global economy, knowledge has gained even more importance as a factor of production. This is one of the fundamental reasons behind recognizing knowledge as a “property” and attaching rights to the holders of knowledge, akin to property holders. This led to the concept of Intellectual Property (IP). 2. During the recent past, it has increasingly been acknowledged that the Traditional Knowledge (TK) can be very useful in devising new technologies and finding solutions even in these areas where modern science and technology fail to provide a convincing answer. This brings a paradigm shift in the approach adopted so far in the treatment of knowledge as a property. Knowledge, as it was understood so far as “intellectual” property, was till recently a part of the developed societies, a creation of the “modern” world. There was now a different type of knowledge, processed by the traditional and indigenous societies called “traditional” knowledge, challenging the hegemony of modern world over knowledge itself. 3.…show more content…
There is no internationally accepted definition of the term ‘Traditional Knowledge’ so far. Various organizations and authors describe it in their own way. World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) interprets it, in a general sense, as the content of knowledge itself as well as traditional cultural expressions, including distinctive signs and symbols associated with traditional knowledge. In a narrow sense, it refers to knowledge, in particular the knowledge resulting from intellectual activity in a traditional context, and includes know-how, practices, skills and innovation. TK covers a wide spectrum of knowledge from biodiversity/ natural resource knowledge, traditional medicines, agriculture and animal husbandry practices to knowledge of arts, crafts, music, architecture and traditional
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