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Heritage and Intellectual Property Rights |
There is a long history to the abuse of San heritage and intellectual property rights (IPR). Starting hundreds of years ago, communities were dispossessed of their lands and associated livelihoods. Forced to assimilate or move, whole communities lost cultural practices, such as music, dance and rock art; or traditional knowledge, including understanding of bush foods, natural medicines, and the tracking of animals.
Today San IPR are continually compromised. Across southern Africa several national heritage sites fail to acknowledge their San origins or to provide any financial benefit to San communities. Similarly, few San have benefited when their traditional knowledge has been used to make commercial products including films, books, published articles and health supplements. Exploitation has seen researchers extract information without explaining their intentions, or paying informants negligible amounts - sometimes just some food, cigarettes or even alcohol. On a number of occasions, San communities have been grossly misrepresented to their great despair.
To address these issues, the Heritage and IPR programme undertakes the following activities:
- Raising San awareness on the value of their traditional knowledge as well as encouraging communities to sign contracts with researchers and media professionals.
- Building the capacity of San leaders to claim intellectual property rights, including rock art and traditional knowledge relating to plants such as hoodia, a diet-suppressant used by the San for millennia.
- Assisting in negotiations on access and benefit sharing (ABS) regarding the commercial outcome of products based upon San traditional knowledge.
- Supporting San-owned and –operated cultural centres, such as !Khwa ttu in South Africa.
Achievements:!Khwa ttu: !Khwa ttu is a joint venture between WIMSA and a Swiss Trust (Ubuntu Foundation) located in the Western Cape, which was started in 1999. It was established to restore and display San heritage and culture, to educate the general public about the San and to provide training to the San in entrepreneurship, tourism, community development and craft production. Facilities include full conference amenities, a restaurant, craft shop, guided walking trail (‘San experience’), and accommodation.
Hoodia: When the case of the patenting of Hoodia by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) required urgent action in 2001, WIMSA mandated the South African San Council to carry out benefit sharing negotiations on behalf of all San in the region. A first agreement was reached with the CSIR in 2003.
Following the publicity surrounding the Hoodia patent, sales of raw Hoodia (as opposed to the patented extract) soared on the world market, WIMSA started to negotiate for fair benefits from the sale of raw hoodia also. In 2007, a second benefit sharing agreement was signed with the South African Hoodia Growers Association, under which the San receive R 24 per dry kilogramme of exported hoodia.
This was regarded as a further “milestone agreement” by international organisations dealing with the protection of biodiversity and traditional knowledge under the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity, setting the framework for a fair sharing of benefits with the San as knowledge holders. Two San leaders were elected as directors of South African Hoodia Growers Association, signifying the San interest in the Hoodia industry, as well as a commitment to developing the industry in conjunction with the San.
A San Hoodia Trust was founded as an institution charged with acting on behalf of WIMSA to ensure the proper distribution of the benefits derived from Hoodia.
Currently WIMSA is working towards regulations to enforce benefit sharing by Hoodia growers, alignment of relevant government policies between South Africa and Namibia, and a benefit sharing agreement between Namibian San and Nama.
In December 2008, the sense of optimism in the international Hoodia markets was shattered when Unilever announced its withdrawal from commercial development of the Hoodia patent. Despite this setback new Hoodia products are still being developed and sold, and there are new applications for patents - WIMSA's work surrounding Hoodia continues.
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