Intangible Cultural Heritage and T&CM Methods
What are the connections between Intangible Cultural Heritage (IKE) in the sense of the UNESCO Convention of 2003 and the healing systems and methods of Traditional & Complementary Medicine and Healing?
Cultural Heritage UNESCO
ANME calls for the recognition of traditional healing knowledge and methods of complementary and alternative medicine as an "Intangible Cultural Heritage" in the sense of the UNESCO Convention of 2003.
Human development is inconceivable without cultural achievements. To this day, this cultural heritage finds expression, for example, in art, fashion, music, medicine or in the preparation of food. It also includes intangible knowledge about plants, spiritual practices, dances and ritual contexts. Traditional healing methods and their remedies have cultural roots, some of which go back several thousand years and still exist today in all continents of this planet.
This cultural heritage belongs to all human beings. It is therefore urgently necessary to protect this heritage and to preserve it in the future as faithfully as possible for European citizens and naturopathic practitioners in Europe. In concrete terms, this would mean inserting a separate paragraph on the subject in the "EU Directive on Patients' Rights", in which the right of access to the "intangible cultural heritage" is laid down. Here is the wording: "Every citizen of the European Union or of a Member State has the right, now and in the future, to benefit from the traditional healing knowledge and methods of T&CM in their original form as intangible cultural heritage.”
First EU Herb-Gathering
1st European Herb Gathering, 4-7 October 2012, Lesachtal, AT
Rural Actors for Health
Herbs play an important role for health
- Traditional knowledge about the use of plants is acknowledged as intangible cultural heritage (recognized by UNESCO). This represents a strong commitment to safeguard this knowledge and the benefits it can provide for public human health.
- The cultivation, processing, selling and use of herbs is strongly restricted by regulations
- It is often rural actors, mainly women, who are the holders of knowledge how to cultivate and process plants and how to use them. These actors play an important role in the economic balance of rural regions. The cultivation and processing of plants is an important cornerstone of multifunctional agriculture.
ANME demands the recognition of Traditional Medicine/CAM as an „Intangible Cultural Heritage-ICH”
Human evolution is not conceivable without cultural achievements. This cultural legacy is so far expressed by art, fashion, music, healing arts or the skill of cooking. Likewise the not yet tangible knowledge about plants, spiritual practices, dances and ritual correlations does belong to it as the so-called “Intangible Cultural Heritage“. Traditional medicine has its own cultural roots which are in parts thousands of years old and continue still intensely in all continents of this planet. According to the statutes of ANME all category of natural medicine has to be considered as traditional cultural heritage and which is property of mankind. Therefore is it utterly required to protect this inheritance in future as faithfully as possible for all European citizens and active CAM-practitioners in Europe.