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Goldberg, Carole E. --- "A United States perspective on the protection of indigenous cultural heritage" [2012] ELECD 1176; in Graber, Beat Christoph; Kuprecht, Karolina; Lai, Christine Jessica (eds), "International Trade in Indigenous Cultural Heritage" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012) 331

Book Title: International Trade in Indigenous Cultural Heritage

Editor(s): Graber, Beat Christoph; Kuprecht, Karolina; Lai, Christine Jessica

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857938305

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: A United States perspective on the protection of indigenous cultural heritage

Author(s): Goldberg, Carole E.

Number of pages: 31

Abstract/Description:

There is no way to place a precise value on the knowledge and cultural heritage of indigenous peoples of the United States. There are, however, a few data points that suggest how enormous that value could be. In 1997, the United States Department of Commerce indicated that Indian arts and crafts were generating US$1.2 billion in gross revenue. In 2003, a professor at the University of Hawaii proposed licensing the Hawaiian genome as the intellectual property of the Hawaiian people, pointing out that the great population loss that occurred among Native Hawaiians in the nineteenth century made them an unusually homogenous group, and therefore valuable for scientific research. A pharmaceutical company had paid US$200 million for rights to the Icelandic genome, which underwent a similar demographic experience. The temptations to appropriate and commercialise that knowledge are undeniable. Money is not the only measure of value for indigenous heritage, however. Many indigenous groups resist commercialisation, preferring that at least some of their traditional knowledge and heritage remain secret, or at least reserved for internal cultural uses.


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