***********************************************
WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Increasing
Biopiracy by Trans-National Corporations & Universities
***********************************************
Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
October
19, 1995
OVERVIEW
& SOURCE
Third
World Network Features reports on increased corporate
biopiracy,
as corporations race to benefit economically from
genetic
resources and indigenous knowledge.
Unfortunately, there
are
rarely adequate measures to insure mutual benefit from this
knowledge
exchange. Often, corporations then
patent products from
these
inputs "without recognising and rewarding the contributions
of
rural people of the South."
Examples cited include allegations
that
the development and patent of a new sweetener by the
University
of Wisconsin was done without benefits accruing to the
people
of Gabon where the berry used was found.
The tragedy of
this
new wave of North/South exploitation is that the
international
community, by foresaking requirements that companies
compensate
the keepers of this knowledge and resources, is losing
a
valuable opportunity to reward and promote conservation of
traditional
ways and biological diversity by indigenous peoples.
Thus,
there is all the more incentive to just industrially log
biologically
rich areas.
g.b.
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/*
Written 6:58 PM Oct 18, 1995 by twn in igc:twn.features */
/*
---------- "Increasing biopiracy by TNCs" ---------- */
From:
Third World Network <twn@igc.apc.org>
EVER
INCREASING BIOPIRACY BY TNCs
An
international non-governmental organisation has warned of
increasing
biopiracy by the North in the South, and cites cases
of
transnational corporations seeking to extract Third World
indigenous
knowledge and genetic resources for corporate profit.
By
Chakravarthi Raghavan
Third
World Network Features
Geneva:
On the eve of the Conference of Parties (COPs) of the
Biodiversity
Convention in Jakarta this November, biopiracy has
kicked
into high gear and there are few places on earth where
rural
people are not facing biopirates seeking to extract their
knowledge
and resources for corporate profit, says Rural
Advancement
Fund International (RAFI), a leading Canada-based
international
non-governmental organisation (NGO).
In the
September/October issue of its newsletter RAFI Communique,
RAFI
has given a partial list of some 57 companies, institutions
or
intermediaries, 37 of them from the United States, which are
now
scouring Third World countries for their genetic resources
and
indigenous knowledge, and patenting them for private profit.
The
genes from plants, animals and microorganisms that flourish
in the
South are the strategic `raw materials' for the
development
of new agricultural, pharmaceutical, and industrial
products.
The
annual value of medicinal plants from the South used by the
pharmaceutical
industry in the North, according to a recent
United
Nations Developmeent Programme (UNDP) study, is in the
range
of $32 billion. The value of `undiscovered' plant-based
pharmaceuticals
in the tropical forest alone is conservatively
put by
another recent study at $147 billion.
And the
Clinton administration (in a letter to the US Senate
urging
ratification of the Biodiversity Convention) has recently
pointed
out that foreign germplasm adds over $10 billion to the
$28
billion annual maize and soybean production in the United
States.
In many
cases of `bioprospecting' and `biopiracy', the major
transnational
pharmaceutical companies operate by contract with
university
research teams (who have better access to resources or
knowledge)
and/or through private institutions set up in the
country
itself which sign contracts with the Northern
corporations.
Bilateral
genetic prospecting agreements, sanctioned by the
Biodiversity
Convention, generally operate beyond the control of
source
communities and countries and governments convening u73
for the
COP meeting in November are faced with a glaring
contradiction,
RAFI warns.
The
contradiction lies in this: the Convention sanctions the
intellectual
property of the corporations without recognising and
rewarding
the contributions of rural people of the South.
Intellectual
property rights (IPRs) can only be discussed and
adequately
addressed by the COPs in the context of indigenous
people's
rights, but it is not clear whether the COP is willing
to face
this and address the problem, RAFI adds.
The
RAFI Communique identifies some recent glaring cases of
plants
and knowledge of rural communities from the South that
have
been used to get valuable patents in the North.
**
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin in the US have
received
two US patents for a protein isolated from the berry of
Pentadiplandra
brazzeana in Gabon. This protein, which the
university
researchers call `brazzein', is 2,000 times sweeter
than
sugar. But unlike other non-sugar sweeteners, `brazzein' is
a
natural substance and does not lose its sweet taste when
heated,
making it particularly valuable for the food industry.
Seeing
people and animals in Gabon eat and enjoy these berries,
the
Wisconsin University researcher, Goran Hellekant, came to the
conclusion
that `there was something of value there' and
attributes
it to `scientific intuition'.
Laboratory
research then identified, isolated and sequenced the
DNA
encoding for the production of P.brazzeana's sweet protein.
Subsequent
work has focused on making transgenic organisms to
produce
brazzein in high-tech laboratories -- thus eliminating
the
need to collect or grow commercially the berries in West
Africa.
Brazzein
has been patented by the University of Wisconsin which
now has
exclusive rights to this and intends to license it to
corporations. The University hopes to make an inroad into
the
$100-billion-a-year
market for sweeteners.
However,
Gabon and its people will get no benefit or compen-
sation.
RAFI
quotes a University of Wisconsin spokesman that brazzein is
`an
invention of a UW-Madison researcher ... and Wisconsin has no
connection
to Gabon'.
The
Foundation for Ethnobiology, based in Oxford (UK), has been
ranging
across the tropics seeking access to and information
about
medicinal plants.
RAFI
investigations reveal that the Foundation has `for- profit'
links
with the pharmaceutical industry and the Foundation
President
Conrad Gorinsky (an ethnobotanist specialis u73 ing in
the
Amazon) has recently received industrial patents at the
European
Patent Office on two medicinal compounds with Amazonian
origin
-- Cunaniol (EP 610059) and Rupununine (EP 610060).
Gorinsky
has claimed broad uses for the two compounds including
applications
in cardiology, neurology, fertility and tumour
control,
as well as for use on skin lesions.
Gorinsky
has entered into a joint venture recently with a
Canadian
corporation (Greenlight Communications) to produce and
sell
his two patented compounds, and is trying to sell the rights
to the
Amazonian plants to industry giants like Zeneca and Glaxo.
** In
Thailand, through the `Riche Monde Initiative for
Ethnobiology
in Thailand', the Foundation sought to exhaustively
inventory
the ethnobiological knowledge of the Karen people.
Riche
Monde Ltd, financier of the project, is a Thai subsidiary
of Moet
Hennessey Louis Vuitton (the Paris-based luxury goods
manufacturer
with a strong financial interest in plant breeding
and
cosmetics).
But
last July, a group of Thai NGOs (led by the Project for
Ecological
Recovery and NorthNet) publicly appealed for
termination
of the project.
The
weight of NGO arguments, and the subsequent media coverage,
led to
the halting of the project when Riche Monde withdrew --
citing
the glare of unfriendly publicity.
Thai
NGOs have also subsequently discovered that the project was
never
submitted for approval to Thailand's National Science
Council
and the groups listed on the Foundation's
proposal as
those
`being consulted' included groups (like NorthNet) and
people
that opposed the project. Some of the `persons being
consulted'
denied ever speaking to the Foundation
representatives.
While the Foundation's researchers claimed that
theirs
was an academic exercise to systematise indigenous
knowledge,
and there were no commercial aims, Thai
NGOs brought
out
that Karen villagers were being asked
to sign contracts
allowing
the Foundation researchers to gain access to all Karen
`environmental
insights'.
** In
Ecuador, the US pharmaceutical transnational Pfizer is
making
a startling bid for that country's plant diversity. In
early
June details of Pfizer's bioprospecting proposals became
public
and aroused alarm and opposition among Ecuador's NGOs,
academics
and many government officials.
The
Pfizer proposal will enable it to get exclusive rights to
patent
a large portion of Ecuador's biodiversity -- with a
`sweetener'
for Ecuador in the shape of what RAFI calls `a
poorly-distributed,
trivial royalties'.
Pfizer's
local partners -- Foundacion Tropica 2000 and Foundacion
Jatun
Sacha -- are to buy 100 hectares of land in each of
Ecuador's
three major biomes in the Pacific coast, Andes mountain
and
Amazon basins, and to comprehensively inventory and sample
the
plant species found in each area.
Samples
of each plant, conservatively estimated to have 9,000
extracts
each, are to be shipped to Pfizer for its exclusive use
in
medical and veterinary product development.
Pfizer's
up-front investment to acquire control over the samples
is a paltry
$1 million. Over the longer term it would pay a
royalty
of 1-2% of net sales to the Foundacion Tropica 2000.
The
agreement ignores Ecuador's law prohibiting private
organisations
from negotiating royalty rates on plant genetic
resources,
which are considered a `public good' in Ecuador.
** In
Peru, the Aguaruna and Huambisa indigenous peoples' Council
(CAH)
has strongly condemned and is seeking termination of a
Washington
University ethnobiology project aiming to
commercialise
Aguaruna and Huambisa medicinal plants and
knowledge.
In
early 1995, without consultation with or approval from the
indigenous
peoples, the Washington University researchers
unilaterally
decided to initiate the collection of samples and
ethnographic
materials (to be provided to the chemical giant
Monsanto)
in remote northeastern Peruvian communities.
This
brought a quick reaction from indigenous peoples who on 10
March
issued a letter signed by over 100 community repre-
sentatives,
appealing to the US National Institute of Health
(NIH).
The letter rejected the lack of transparency, impositions
and
manipulations of the Washington University research team and
demanded
their immediate withdrawal from the Aguaruna and
Huambisa
territory.
** Two
US companies have floated a proposal to subdue a group of
Ecuadorian
indigenous people for the pursuit of their plant
knowledge
-- and capturing it all on film for a US video
audience.
Loren
Miller of the International Plant Medicine Corporation and
film-maker
Bryant Productions (both of California, USA) have
proposed
use of military helicopters to airlift soldiers, a film
crew
and botanists into remote Tagaeri villages in Ecuadorean
Amazon.
Miller and Bryant say they want to `show how Tagaeri come
into
contact with a group of white men supported by soldiers,
Ecuadorian
helicopters and members of the Huaorani people so that
they
can teach botanists which plants they use as medicines'.
The
Tagaeri are a small uncontacted subgroup of the Huaorani
people.
Several years ago when oil companies came to their
region,
the Tagaeri chose to avoid Western influence on their
culture
and established settlements isolated from outside
influence.
The
Miller-Bryant proposal has evoked a harsh retort from COICA
(the
Coordinating Body of Indigenous Peoples' Organisations of
the
Amazon Basin), which has appealed to Ecuador's President to
stop
the project.
COICA
has said, `Bryant and Miller propose to integrate the
Tagaeri
into "civilisation", buying them with the supposed
benefit
of being a curiosity for tourists. Even worse ... they
propose
to appropriate the ancient knowledge of these people of
medicinal
plants ... The right to no contact and to any
individual
or group's privacy is a basic human right that cannot
be
violated with impunity by anyone.' - Third World Network
Features
- ENDS
-
About
the writer: Chakravarthi Raghavan is Chief Editor of SUNS
(South-North
Developing Monitor), a daily bulletin, and the
Geneva
representative of the Third World Network. When reproducing
this
feature, please credit Third World Network Features and (if
applicable)
the cooperating magazine or agency involved in the
article,
and give the byline. Please send us cuttings.
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