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| Maasai youth dancing. Photo/Wikipedia |
By ADAM IHUCHA--
The European Union is funding an
ambitious project that would see Maasai traditional items in Tanzania patented
as an intellectual property.
The Maasai are among few remaining
African ethnic groups, rich in cultural creativity but remain poor in the
middle of cultural wealth - mainly due to widespread ignorance among the
community.
The idea is to empower the Maasai, to
protect their cultural creativity by exclusive rights patent to all items
related to the tribe against any inappropriate use or exploitation.
The European union has already provided
Tsh 601.212 million ($375,758) for that initiative.
This means that for those who use
Maasai traditional knowledge, culture or items for scientific and commercial
purposes, should prepare to start paying for the Maasai trademarks.
For instance, tour operators who have
been using the Maasai artifacts, ornaments, regalia, and weapons to market
their safaris , now would be compelled to pay the Maasai community.
The Maasai Pastoralists Foundation
(MPF) would execute a two-year project, which took off last week, in
partnership with Tanzania Intellectual Property Network (TIP-Net).
MPF Director, Mr Emmanuel Ole Kokan
said to start with, the project would carry out awareness campaign on
intellectual property rights to the Maasai community.
MPF head further said that the project
would also enable the Maasai community to collect all their cultural arts and
historical information, in the process of being patented.
"We would empower Maasai community
to start to benefit from traditional knowledge, cultural creativity, but this
would not be achieved without their cultural intellectual property protection,
against exploitation," Mr Kokan told the audience during the project
launch at Esilalei Village in Monduli .
To start with, nearly 35,000 Maasai
people in Monduli district will receive training on intellectual property
rights in order to start protecting their traditional knowledge against
exploitation.
The Executive Secretary for the
Tanzania Association of Tour Operators (TATO) Mustafa Akuunay told this
reporter that the Maasai community owes the tour operators millions of dollars
for promoting them and their culture abroad.
"Tour operators spend
multi-million-dollars to promote Maasai, so the community is ought to pay tour
companies royalty for the marketing blitz" Mr Akuunay said.
Monduli District commissioner Jowika
Kassunga commended the MPF for coming up with the right project at the right
time, vowing to provide all necessary support for the project to be successful.
MPF board chairperson Lois Francis
Pulei said the project would also initiate an exchange programme with communities
in neighboring Kenya in order for Tanzanian Maasai to learn how they could turn
their cultural creativity into serious business.
"I'm a Tanzanian Maasai married to
a Kenyan husband ... I want to make sure that others benefit from our Kenyan
counterparts who have created businesses out of cultural creativity," Ms
Pulei explained.
Analysts say as science and technology
advance, natural resources shrink, prompting increased interest in
appropriating indigenous knowledge for scientific and commercial purposes.
"Some Pharmaceutical firms are
patenting, or claiming ownership of traditional medicinal plants even though
indigenous peoples have used such plants for generations," says Edna
Kaptoyo from Indigenous Information Network (IIN) in Kenya.
In many cases, Ms Kaptoyo says,
indigenous peoples' traditional ownership of such knowledge is not recognized
and hence deprived of their fair share in the economic, medical, or social
benefits that accrue from the use of their customary knowledge or practices.
Maria Lemta, a Maasai woman who sales
beads at Esilalei Maasai village in Monduli is whetting appetite to patent her
products and sale at the higher price.
"With my little knowledge, I have
tested the fruits of my cultural creativity, but if this project will educate
us and patent our products, we will reap more money" Ms Lemta explains.
EU head of delegation to Tanzania, Mr
Filiberto Sebregondi said they have decided to invest significantly on cultural
creativity in Tanzania to unlock the potential of a sleeping giant industry in
order to contribute to human and socio-economic development.
"In countries where they have been
given the right attention, the cultural and creativity industries have become a
significant contributor to GDP (Nigeria, South Africa)" Mr Sebregondi
explains.
Available records estimates that 17
percent of all employed people in South Africa are employed in the creative
industries, with the sector contributing three percent of GDP, on a par with
Australia.
The EU envoy further says that it is
also one of the most important sectors for entrepreneurship and creation of new
companies.
In Tanzania, he argues, creative and
cultural industries would only flourish if the right drivers are in place and
are enabled to reach out to wider markets.
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