The USPTO has announced that it "supports greater protection for traditional knowledge and folklore." I spoke with a patent official who headed the U.S. delegation to the WIPO Geneva Convention. According to him, the protection should come through methods external to the USPTO. These methods include a database of traditional knowledge and better accessability to model contracts.
The BBC has more on the traditional knowlege front. See also, Gerard Bodeker's presentation on "Indigenous Medical Knowledge: the Law and Politics of Protection."
Update: (April 13, 2004) The Honey Bee Network provides resources for local innovation in its campaign for protection of Intellectual Property Rights of Grassroots level innovators.
Update (April 21, 2004) Nipper has provided links for non-patent prior art databases for searching.
More on Prior Art Databases and “traditional knowledge”
The Patently Obvious Blog has an interesting post re: prior art/traditional knowledge. See: Patently Obvious: Traditional Knowledge See also my previous posts: Prior art databases Internet Non-Patent Prior Art Databases