Geographical Indication (GI) options for Ethiopian Coffee and Ghanaian Cocoa

Chapter 7
Consideration of a Legal rust” “T Model for the
Kukula Healers’ TK Commons in South Africa
Gino Cocchiaro, Johan Lorenzen, Bernard Maister
and Britta Rutert
Abstract
In this chapter, the authors outline their research findings from examination of the evolution
and current dynamics of the traditional knowledge (TK) commons of a large grouping of traditional
healers – the Kukula Traditional Health Practitioners’ Association – in the Bushbuckridge
area of northeastern South Africa. The authors argue that one potential way forward for the
healers towards securing improved protection, sharing and benefit from the intellectual property
(IP) represented by their TK could be the setting up of a legal “trust” with the healers serving
as the trust’s beneficiaries. While such a trust would not solve all the problems related to IP
protection, it would permit the healers to manage their commons more effectively and govern
aspects of IP management such as “access and benefit-sharing” and “prior informed consent”.
1. Introduction
The Kukula Traditional Health Practitioners’ Association (the “Kukula Healers”)
is a group of traditional medicine practitioners who live in the Bushbuckridge area
in northeastern South Africa. Spread across parts of two provinces (Mpumalanga
and Limpopo), Bushbuckridge lies within the Kruger to Canyons (K2C) area,
which the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has
registered as a Biosphere Reserve. The K2C Biosphere Region is managed by the
K2C Management Committee comprising six individual stakeholders working
in the tourism and political/government sectors in the region (K2C, n.d.). The
K2C area contains an exceptionally wide array of animal and plant biodiversity.
Moreover, there are various ethnic groups in the area, as reflected in members
of the Kukula Healers’ collective, who come from the Tsonga/Shangaan, Swazi,