South Pacific Region Moves to Protect Indigenous Wisdom

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PNG RAINFOREST CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

May 29, 1995

OVERVIEW & SOURCE

The InterPress Service reports on efforts to insure that South

Pacific indigenous peoples benefit meaningfully from

bioprospecting. Note this item is copyrighted and may _NOT_ be

reprinted without approval from IPS whose contact information is

at the end of the article. This was posted in econet's

ips.english conference. For further information on EcoNet

membership, a nonprofit online system, send any message to

<econet-info@igc.apc.org>.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

/* Written 4:09 PM May 27, 1995 by newsdesk in igc:ips.english

/* ---------- "SOUTH PACIFIC: Region Moves to Prot" ---------- */

Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.

*** 24-May-95 ***

Title: SOUTH PACIFIC: Region Moves to Protect Indigenous Wisdom

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY, May 24 (IPS) - Indigenous groups in the South Pacific say

they are willing to share their traditional wisdom and natural

resources with the rest of humanity but they must be the ones to

determine when, where and how they are used.

Native peoples in the region, which has a large share of the

world's indigenous cultures, languages and flora and fauna, are

currently drafting a treaty to make the South Pacific a life form

patent-free zone and prevent exploitation by bio-prospectors.

''We are going to draft a treaty first and then approach

governments (in the South Pacific) for support,'' said Lopeti

Senituli, director of the Suva-based Pacific Concerns Resource

Centre (PCRC).

He compared this process to the adoption of the South Pacific

Nuclear Free Zone treaty in 1986 by the South Pacific Forum (SPF),

which groups South Pacific island states with Australia and New

Zealand. ''It contained about 50 percent of our Nuclear Free and

Independent Pacific Treaty, adopted in 1975,'' he told IPS.

The PCRC recently held a week-long regional consultation in

Suva on indigenous peoples' knowledge and intellectual property

rights. The meeting, sponsored by the United Nations Development

Programme (UNDP), was attended by indigenous groups in the

Pacific, including Hawaii.

The meeting called for a moratorium on bio-prospecting in the

Pacific and urged indigenous peoples not to cooperate with bio-

prospectors until appropriate protection mechanisms are in place.

The indigenous groups said they are willing to share their

knowhow but they must be able to set their own terms. ''At present

the international system does not recognise or respect our past,

present and potential contributions,'' they said in a statement.

In an address to the conference, Fiji's Education, Culture,

Science and Technology Minister Taufa Vakatale drew attention to

the increasing problem of the extraction of oral and cultural

traditions by academic pirates.

''Unauthorised research on craft and oral traditions are being

carried out on tourist visas,'' she said. ''The hospitality of our

people has enabled researchers to live in many rural and isolated

communities and record the rich cultural traditions of our society

without supervision of the relevant authorities.''

Added Vakatale: ''This information leaves the country and very

rarely returns for the benefit of our communities, thus only

benefiting the individual carrying out the work.''

''In this day and age, we have bio-prospectors who sometimes

come as eco-tourists,'' said Senituli. ''They go out to do bio-

prospecting for universities or pharmaceutical companies.''

Bio-prospectors normally adopt the practices used by Christian

missionaries in the past century, which is to identify the chief

and then work with them, he says. The chief then gives his or her

blessing to their activity and asks the villagers to assist them.

''We're using that historical example to urge the chiefs of the

Pacific that they should be more careful about assisting these

bio-

prospectors,'' says Senituli.

Indigenous knowledge of medicinal value and properties of

plants and micro-organisms is now a highly lucrative business

worldwide earning pharmaceutical and chemical companies billions

of dollars.

The Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) estimates

that three-quarters of all plant-derived prescription drugs were

discovered because of their prior medicinal use by indigenous

peoples. Conservative estimates put the annual world market value

for these plant-derived medicines at 43 billion dollars in 1990.

Jean Christie, RAFI's director of information, told the Suva

meeting these so-called medical discoveries by Western scientists

treat basically the same illnesses indigenous people used them

for. ''This gives us some sense of the economic values involved

and the potential for exploitation in these areas,'' she said.

RAFI notes it was a woman healer in Samoa who recently led a

Western botanist to a plant she uses to treat viral illnesses. The

National Institute of Health in the United States is now

extracting a valuable chemical from the plant that may protect

immune cells from the AIDS virus.

Thirteen cell lines taken from citizens of the Solomon Islands

and Papua New Guinea are now deposited at the American Type

Culture Collection in Washington pending a patent application.

One of the patents filed by U.S. health authorities stakes

claim to the human T-cell line of a Papua New Guinean, obtained

through blood samples taken in 1989 from 24 people in Madang

province. This cell line is potentially useful for treating

leukemia and chronic degenerating neurologic diseases.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has also put a patent claim for

the human T-cell line of a 40-year-old woman from Marovo Lagoon in

the Western province and a 58-year-old man from Guadacanal

province of the Solomon Islands.

RAFI points out that under the Biodiversity Convention,

signatory states must recognise the ownership of genetic material

by countries or companies.

Germplasm collected in one country before the Convention went

into force must be regarded as the property of the country that

now stores the material. Thus the material now under patent claim

in the United States are their material and the people of the

Soloman Islands and Papua New Guinea will have to pay for medical

products derived from their blood samples.

Senituli says that though they are basically talking about

making the Pacific a life form patent-free zone, they are also

concerned about the extraction of traditional handicrafts and

artefacts from the Pacific island communities.

''A lot of these are kept in private art collections or museums

overseas. Some of these of course were given away as gifts, but a

lot of them were simply stolen,'' said Senituli. ''We feel they

should be returned to its rightful owners or if not, there should

be some way in which the rightful owners should benefit from the

commercialisation of these artefacts''.

One way of doing this, says Senituli, is to give the rightful

owners a percentage of the entrance fees charged to view a

collection that includes stolen items from the Pacific. But he

acknowledges this will not be an easy task.

Senituli says the PCRC will be lobbying chiefs in South Pacific

island states to help them stop bio-piracy in the region.

(END/IPS/KS/LNH/95)

Origin: Manila/SOUTH PACIFIC/

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