(C) 2000 The Independent (UK)
October 16, 2000  
By Nicole Veash

It is a humid grey Sunday morning in Manaus, capital of the Amazon. Down by the coal-black riverside, far away from the city's docks and commercial districts, is a small market. There are no more than two-dozen stalls, some with blue plastic awnings to protect their owners from the inevitable rain. But, despite its size, this market seems to sell everything - from batteries to bananas; copper piping to Chinese firecrackers. And among this cornucopia there are also animals. Lots of animals.

Every week, traffickers from across the region travel here to buy and sell beasts of every kind. They come with armfuls of tropical birds and tiny boxes stuffed with monkeys. Unlike the regular stallholders, who are all banter and boisterousness, these men remain silent, coming alive only when they surreptitiously catch the eye of a passer-by. "Olha! Look at this," says one old man, swiftly opening a carrier bag for inspection. Inside are two brilliant blue parrots. "See how fine they are. How healthy." He strokes them both with a grubby finger, then points to their eyes. "Look at these. How shiny! How clear!"

Despite the old man's pitch, the birds look anything but healthy. Most of their tail feathers are missing, and they move listlessly in the bag. When he is questioned about where they come from, his manner changes abruptly. Squashing the bag shut, he stuffs it up his jumper. "Never mind where it comes from. You want to buy? Yes or no." When no offer is forthcoming, he shuffles off quickly into the crowd. A little later, he returns with a much younger man, who is trying hard to look fashionable in a shell- suit. "If you're interested in animals, you should talk to me," he says. "I have many dealings with foreigners." As if this were some kind of signal, the old man makes himself scarce. Meanwhile, his shell-suited companion produces a scrapbook. He begins flicking through the pages, which show pictures of birds and snakes and monkeys: every imaginable type of Amazonian animal, including jaguars.

"Anything you want from the rainforest," he says, "Anything at all - I can get it for you."

THE INTERNATIONAL community is used to worrying about the despoliation of the Amazon jungle by loggers. But what it is only just waking up to is the fact that this vast South American wilderness is now facing a new, equally insidious threat - not from loggers, but from biopirates, pillaging the jungle both for its animals and for its exotic plants.

According to the Brazilian authorities, some 15 million creatures are trafficked out of the Amazon each year, destined - although nine out of 10 perish in transit - for zoos, pet shops and private collections. Brightly coloured birds - including parrots and macaws - are the most trafficked of all animals; followed by snakes, lizards and small turtles. Amphibians and mammals - particularly primates - are also popular, along with spiders and ornamental fish. And some of these animals are on the endangered list.

This is now the third most profitable kind of smuggling in the region, after narcotics and gun running, according to Dener Giovanini, director of Brazil's National Network Against the Illegal Wild Animal Trade (Renctas). "We believe that there are six organised gangs out there who are responsible for the majority of the trafficking," he says. "We have a serious problem because this crime is growing more sophisticated and the traffickers are using the Internet to reach a far wider audience than ever before." Wanted advertisements are placed directly on to the Internet, detailing age and breed requirements. One such request reads: "I only buy rare cobras. Please send details", followed by an e-mail address.

But trafficking animals is only part of the problem. "At pounds 30m a year, it's the tip of the iceberg," says Jose Leland Barossa, chief inspector for the Amazon arm of the Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama). "The real money is in plants. It could be costing Brazil billions. That is what really worries me." As well it might - for many of those accused of despoiling the Amazon of its plants are not members of criminal gangs, but respectable scientists and multinational pharmaceutical firms acting within the law as it stands.

Barossa, a wiry man with a predilection for sweet, black coffee and Malboro Lights, is in charge of preventing eco-crimes in an area of forest the size of western Europe. To do this, he has just 70 men. "It's very difficult to patrol the forest," he says. "There are few roads, and the boats we use are slow. Then, of course, we just don't have enough men. We try to position inspectors in key areas, but it's almost impossible to guard the frontiers effectively because they are so large. The traffickers know this and take full advantage. The task facing us is huge." He pauses to reflect, dragging on his cigarette. "No: insurmountable."

YOU GET some idea of the importance of the Amazon as an untapped resource from the following: in 1995, 118 of the top 150 prescription drugs in the United States were derived from plants or animals. Yet the proportion of plant species investigated for their medical properties was estimated at just 1,100 out of 365,000. On average, one important new drug has been produced for every 125 plant species studied, whereas the equivalent rate for chemical compounds is one in 10,000. No wonder that some have compared the rush to investigate the Amazon's plants to drilling for oil or the gold-rushes of the 19th- century - with the ultimate "strike" being the discovery of a cure for cancer.

Amazonian plants that have already been successfully developed for health- related purposes in the First World include the cinchona tree, whose bark (quinine) has been used in anti-malarial drugs since the 1920s; the guarana shrub (Paulinia cupania), whose berries are used as a natural stimulant in soft drinks and chewing gum; catclaw acacia (A. greggi), a climbing vine that boosts the immune system and is being studied for its potential as a weapon in the fight against cancer and Aids; the pau-d'arco tree, whose bark is used in the treatment of eczema, psoriasis and candida; and various Amazonian trees - such as Strychnos or Chondodendron - whose bark contains curare, the active ingredient of which, d-turbocurarine, is used as an anaesthetic and in the treatment of multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease.

According to Robert Mendelsohn, a professor of forestry at Yale University, and Michael J Balick, director of the Institute of Economic Botany at the New York Botanical Gardens, at least 300 potentially life-saving drugs may await detection in the Amazon. They value the discovery of these species at pounds 100bn.

In the light of this, it's no surprise to find that around 125 organisations, now have pharmaceutical research interests in the Brazilian Amazon. Based mainly in Rio or Sao Paulo, they range from drug giants such as Glaxo Wellcome and Novartis and cosmetics firms like Cognis and Aveda to smaller operations specialising in "natural" remedies and institutions such as the US National Cancer Institute, the Smithsonian Institute, and Cambridge University.

And just as the Internet is aiding the trafficking gangs, so new technology is helping scientists. Only five years ago, researchers wishing to analyse compounds in a plant had to do so by hand; now automated analysis means that hundreds of samples can be tested in a fraction of the time.

The problem is that with the rewards at stake so great, some less reputable scientists are cutting corners. Sergio Lauria Ferreira, the chief prosecuting lawyer in the state of Amazonas, says that since 1995, his legal team has seen a steady rise in the number of scientists who have been accused of plant "trafficking".

If the charge sounds vague, that's because it is. Brazil's laws governing the removal of plants are full of loopholes, and new legislation is currently being rushed through Congress to clarify the situation. The country has only recently become aware of the real value of the Amazon's genetic material, says Ferreira. "We've just realised what is happening. And that's why we must act fast to limit the damage caused by these people."

Three years ago, Ferreira opened a public inquiry into "biopiracy"; he hopes to publish its findings later this year. "We estimate that around 20,000 individual plant samples are taken illegally out of the country each year. Scientific laboratories rarely do the smuggling themselves. They generally take the information from third parties, who often don't say explicitly where the material comes from. This makes things very difficult to prove when it comes to charging people."

Jose Leland Barossa, of Ibama, says that scientists seeking the treasures of the Amazon rely on local indigenous people to gather information. "The scientists congregate in small frontier towns," he says. "Then they ask the Indians what they would do if they had a headache, muscle pains or a bad stomach. The local people then take them into the jungle and show them which plant they would use to cure those symptoms. The scientists pay the Indians a little money, then take the plant back to their labs. There, they discover the principle by which the plant works and sell their preliminary research on to the pharmaceutical companies for development."

THE EXTENT TO which such scientists are acting illegally, or even immorally, is far from clear. One recent case, which shows how easy it is for scientists to sell the Amazon's intellectual treasures abroad without the authorities' knowledge, involved Ruedger von Reininghaus, the Austrian-born president of a Brazilian non- governmental organisation called Selvaviva.

Von Reininghaus had worked with local Indians for more than 20 years, and during that time had catalogued many of their traditional remedies. In 1997, with the help of the Indians in question, he began to make what he called a register of natural remedies, cataloguing which plants the tribes used, where they grew, what time of the year they should be harvested, their Indian name, the part of the plant used, and how to prepare and administer it.

He then sent this information to Johnson & Johnson, Bayer, Sandoz, Ciba- Geigy, Hoechst and Lilly, claiming that the indigenous people he was working with wanted to sell their tribal knowledge and would be prepared to hand over the patent of any plant to the company willing to pay a to-be-agreed price.

Von Reininghaus was accused of biopiracy by local indigenous organisations, but a subsequent public inquiry found that his intentions were honourable. He wanted to raise money for a school in the poor Indian community, and was attempting to do so in the only way available to him. He insisted that the Indian community supported him in this, although the Indian Missionary Council disagreed. Von Reininghaus was eventually fined, his NGO was closed down, and he has since left Brazil. But the fear of piracy engendered by his case remains widespread.

Nowhere is the ethical and legal minefield that is drugs research in the Amazon shown better than in the case of the Wapishana Indians. For the past year, this northern Amazonian tribe has been in dispute with Conrad Gorinsky, a biochemist formerly of St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, London. Gorinsky, the son of a Pole and a South Amerindian, spent years living with the Wapishana. After spending thousands of pounds of his own money researching plants used by the indigenous natives, he registered two patents in Europe and the US.

The first of these comes from what the tribe call the greenheart tree (Octotea rodiaei). Gorinsky has named the substance "rupununines", in reference to a river that runs through the region. According to the patent's description, it contains an efficient anti- fever chemical and may prevent the recurrence of diseases like malaria. Gorinsky's second patent comes from the cunani bush (Clibatium sylvestre). It is said to be a powerful stimulant.

These discoveries, argues Gorinsky, are the result of a lifetime spent decoding the ingredients in traditional Wapishana remedies. It is a process, he argues, into which he has put all the intellectual effort. What is more, he adds, he has no plans to profit from his work by producing the plant compounds commercially.

Yet, despite this, many tribal members are still unhappy. One of them, Evelyn Gomes, says that her people have used the greenheart tree for generations. "We use it in emergencies to stop bleeding and prevent infection. It can also be used as a contraceptive. My mother told me and, before that, her mother told her." The cunani bush, she says, is important to the tribe, who believe that fish should be hunted without spears or nets. "The men soak the leaves of the cunani and make a kind of ball from it which they then throw into the water. This stops the fish from breathing, so they start to jump out and die. All you have to do then is pick them up and eat."

No one is trying to stop the Wapishana from using the cunani bush in these ways. But Gomes argues that "this knowledge has always been with the Wapishana. It's part of our heritage and is now being taken from us without any payment." After mounting a campaign, the Wapishana people managed to overturn Gorinsky's patent of the cunani bush. The battle over the intellectual rights to the greenheart, however, continues.

AT THE HEART of the campaign against "biopiracy" is the fear that Brazil may lose out on the vast royalties that would accrue should even one plant be patented and then manufactured as a wonder-drug. This concern has forced even Brazil's slow-moving government bureaucracy into belated action.

In June, Congress rushed through a temporary legal guideline in response to public outrage about a contract with the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis. The contract, negotiated by a Brazilian quango called Bioamazonia, gave Novartis patent rights to any of 10,000 plants it discovered in the Amazon, for what seemed to be the knockdown price of pounds 2.7m. It also let them test their plant samples in laboratories outside Brazil, which, critics said, made it nearly impossible to keep track of what was leaving the country.

Roberto Smeraldi, director of Friends of the Earth's Amazon programme, believes the lack of permanent legislation regulating scientific exploration in the jungle allows biopiracy to thrive. "I'm aware that there is wide- scale smuggling of genetic material by unauthorised companies. I'm not talking about respectable pharmaceutical companies being directly involved, but I do believe they could benefit from illegal research.

"Each year, 24 million cubic litres of timber is illegally removed from the Amazon. Genetic material is far easier to take because it is smaller, so I have no doubt about the extent of biopiracy."

Such suspicions are making life increasingly uncomfortable for respectable research companies. The British pharmaceutical giant Glaxo Wellcome began its first ever Amazonian research programme in 1999. The pounds 2.25m project will last three years, during which some 30,000 plant species will be analysed. Yet the company claims that its research in the Amazon is being hampered by a hostile Brazilian public.

"We've submitted all our research proposals to the government for approval," says Dr Paulo Braga, the company's chief medical officer, "yet people are still wary. Our company has been doing research in the Asian rainforests for years without any problems, but here in Latin America things are different. They're much more nationalistic and have so many misconceptions about the way science works."

Glaxo is keeping a respectful distance: all the initial plant collection and analysis has been sub-contracted to a Brazilian bio- tech company called Extracta, which is staffed entirely by scientists from Rio's Federal University. "We have 37 scientists working on the project," says Braga. "None of them are Glaxo employees. That way, people can't claim that we are coming into the Amazon and taking over by employing foreigners who then take the information out of the country.

"All our initial analysis will be done in Brazilian laboratories. After that, any findings we might have will go to the UK - but it's not a case of stealing anything from Brazil. We have to send our findings to the UK because that's where we do our clinical trials." More than money is at stake, he adds: the company is looking for antidotes to tropical diseases endemic in the region, as well as "cures relevant to the whole world".

Yet arguments like these do little to calm the fears of those who believe that the Amazon is being raped. "I applaud ethical scientists who do good work in the forest," says Jose Leland Barossa, the Ibama eco-policeman. "But not everyone is so trustworthy. It's a good policy to have all researchers under suspicion - even the genuine ones. They should be preoccupied with this problem. This isn't paranoia, because it's essential. We need to observe everything they do, or we could lose millions of pounds - money that could be spent on protecting the environment."

Even Brazilian scientists are not considered above suspicion. Recently, Dr Antonio Drauzio Varella - a leading cancer specialist - was vilified by the media for his activities in the Amazon. In 1996, Varella established a non-profit-making partnership with the American National Cancer Institute, which gave him pounds 700,000 to analyse a number of Amazonian plants. The aim was to find a compound that could be used against cancer.

Varella's team collected random samples, but they also spoke to indigenous people about the plants they used for healing. Because of this a number of politicians (as well as a Brazil's most famous indigenous rights campaigner, Orlando Villas Boas) have accused Varella of biopiracy. They argue that he may, at some later stage, use information gleaned from indigenous people to develop the world's first cancer drug. Although Varella would not himself profit financially from any would-be cancer patent, his accusers argue that the Indian tribes might lose out.

For his part, Varella brushes off the charges against him. "While we continue to talk and worry about biopiracy, fewer people are out there actually studying the Amazon, which is a serious form of scientific neglect. Of course biopiracy happens, but we have to balance this against not researching the rainforest at all. Ultimately that is much more damaging for mankind."

JOSE LELAND BAROSSA is clear about what needs to be done to stop trafficking: "What we need are more resources: more men, more boats, better methods of detection. But that's only half the problem. We also need to re-educate people. Here in the Amazon, six out of 10 people have some kind of wild animal in their homes, so they don't actually see much wrong with trafficking." Especially in one of the poorest parts of Brazil: for many, the criminal gangs provide the only way to make a living.

All of these issues need to be addressed. For cash-strapped Brazil, however, it may be too big a task to tackle alone. Perhaps it is time that the international community began playing a more significant role in protecting the rainforest - and that Brazil began to find a framework within which to work with foreign organisations.

Roberto Smeraldi, of Friends of the Earth, is one of the few environmentalists thinking the unthinkable. He believes that if the acquisition of Brazil's botanic patrimony was not only regulated but legalised, it could actually save the rainforest.

"At the moment, we are not only giving the nation's plants away, we are also losing a real reason for people to engage in conserving the forest. If local people were encouraged to look after all the genetic material, and sell a portion on to interested groups in a legally-approved manner, then they would have a real economic incentive to preserve the jungle. At the moment, they don't. That's why there's so much deforestation."

It is an idealistic vision, but were it ever to become reality, then the scientists accused of biopiracy today might tomorrow be hailed as saviours of the Amazon. Error: Unable to read footer file.