***********************************************

WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Asian Farmers Struggle Against Transnationals

***********************************************

Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

2/4/96

OVERVIEW & SOURCE

Following is an excellent article from the Third World Netowrk

which details the struggles of Asian farmers and indigenous

peoples against exploitation of various kinds my foreign

transnational corporations. This was posted in econet's

twn.features conference.

g.b.

*******************************

RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

/* Written 7:58 PM Jan 17, 1996 by twn in igc:twn.features */

/* ---------- "Asian Farmers Struggle Against TNCs" ---------- */

ASIAN FARMERS STRUGGLE AGAINST TRANSNATIONALS

Asian farmers and indigenous people are bringing to international

attention their struggle against the activities of transnational

corporations which threaten to deprive them of their cultural

heritage, traditional knowledge, genetic resources, a habitable

environment, their land and homes.

By Yuli Ismartono and Teena Gill

Jakarta: Asia's farmers are coming out of their agricultural

hinterlands to seek protection from transnational corporations

(TNCs) and industrialists who, say activists, have reaped

billions of dollars at the expense of the environment and

indigenous peoples.

They say the sum total of their losses are difficult to quantify

because of the nature of what has been taken from them -- their

cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, a habitable

environment, their land and homes.

And while the methods used by the industrialists and TNCs may

differ according to what is sought -- be it land or genetic

materials of plants and other biological resources - - the

deprived say the result is the same: the farmers and indigenous

people get ground in the dirt, while the rich get richer.

`The experience with TNCs has so far not been very good,' says

Vitoon Panyakul, an advocate for farmers' and indigenous rights,

and the coordinator of the Thai environmental group Green Net.

`A significant amount of our genetic resources have been taken

away or pirated,' Vitoon added. `These resources are used for the

development of pharmaceutical drugs or agricultural pesticides

and herbicides which are then sold back to Thailand at high

prices.'

A similar cry is heard across the Asia-Pacific region and when it

is not regarding TNCs like pharmaceutical companies seeking to

patent indigenous resources, it concerns big logging firms intent

on raping forest cover with little regard for the environment or

those who depend on it.

In South Asia, Indian farmers are pressuring their parliamentary

representatives to protest the patenting by a US company of a

`neem' tree extract; in Sri Lanka, activists have raised alarm

that a British company is seeking to patent the venom of a spider

native to Sri Lanka for medicinal purposes.

And in the South Pacific, a tiny Melanesian tribe living in a

remote jungle in Papua New Guinea's mountainous interior has

become a cause celebre for groups campaigning against

`biopiracy'.

Ravaged by malaria, the Hagahai tribe has been the subject of a

decade of research and a rare virus strain has been isolated.

Medical experts recently patented their discovery in the United

States.

Meanwhile, in South-East Asia, Thai activists are campaigning

against Japanese drug firms striking gold from the centuries-old

know-how of farmers in Thailand; in Indonesia, villagers are up

in arms because foreign logging firms are about to trample their

habitat.

`Our land is sacred. We cannot convert the forests though by

custom we are allowed to take the timber and hunt the animals,'

said Maniamas Midin, a tribal leader from West Kalimantan, one of

the larger, but less developed islands in the Indonesian

archipelago.

Midin was one of several forest inhabitants from East and West

Kalimantan, South Sumatra and West Java, who journeyed to Jakarta

in November 1995 to register their protest against the activities

of national and international logging concerns which have been

granted new concessions by the Indonesian government.

The villagers used Indonesia's hosting of the second Conference

of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, as a means

of gaining international attention to their plight.

The Nov. 6 - 17 November meeting was attended by delegates from

120 countries who decided, among other things, to establish a

working group, to formulate a protocol on biosafety focusing on

the safe transfer, handling and use of genetically modified

organisms.

This protocol will zoom in on the transboundary movement of such

organisms and while environmentalists and farmers' rights

campaigners in the developing world laud this development, they

worry that other issues that require urgent action were not

tackled at the Jakarta meeting.

One such issue concerns the protection of the rights of

traditional communities.

`Intellectual property rights and the collective rights of

traditional communities are two sides of one issue,' said Vandana

Shiva, Indian author of `Biodiversity, a Third World

Perspective'.

Shiva,whoattended the November meetinghere, estimates

that the value of raw materials `collected for free' from

the South for pharmaceutical companies in the North, could

reach $47 billion by the year 2000.

That apart, indigenous peoples and small farmers are in a

desperate, uphill battle to protect the ecological balance of

lands they have inhabited for many years.

According to Lukas Alpius, a villager from East Kalimantan, the

proposed construction of a logging estate that would cover 1,600

hectares of land, threatens to wipe out much of the province's 52

species of paddy, 42 varieties of rattan, 70 varieties of fruit

and scores of herbal plants.

Indonesia is second only to Brazil in tropical forest area. It is

home to the greatest diversity of palm species and an estimated

20,000 varieties of flowering plants. It also harbours a rich

range of fauna, and has the largest mammal diversity on earth --

515 species.

Thailand also used to be rich in biodiversity and at the turn of

the century up to two-thirds of the kingdom was covered with

forests of remarkable diversity. Now, only scattered patches

occupying about 15% of the country's land area is covered by

reasonably intact ecologically viable natural forests.

Between 1961 and 1985, at least 125,000 square kilometres of

forest land -- about one quarter of Thailand's land area -- was

denuded by logging companies and large landholders growing

upmarket crops.

This has upset not only the ecological balance, but has forced

many indigenous people and small farmers off their plots of land.

Vitoon, of Green Net, says that even the Thai government's

conservation efforts `in the name of biodiversity', have been

detrimental to the indigenous communities.

`This (conservation effort) is done by declaring areas wildlife

sanctuaries or national parks and evicting local indigenous

communities who had settled there for a long time,' says Vitoon.

`While the government talks about the need to share the benefits

of these resources, the needs of the local people who are part

and parcel of these ecosystems are never taken into

consideration,' he charges.

Thai farmers meanwhile remain concerned about the replacement of

local species of crops by TNC-promoted varieties. `This

invariably leads to the loss of valuable crop diversity and the

disruption of the ecological balance,' Vitoon says.

He says that the only way to prevent a complete loss of

biodiversity is for the Thai government to enact legislation that

would provide for `the registration of local peoples' rights to

ownership of, and knowledge of, local bio-resources'.

`Only if such registration is enacted will there be any

possibility of fair dialogue with the World Bank, other

international institutions and private pharmaceutical companies,

since according to the Biodiversity Convention, local knowledge

is still seen to be public knowledge,' Vitoon said.

The Jakarta meeting was actually a follow-up to the 1992 United

Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) at

which the Biodiversity Convention to which Vitoon referred, was

agreed on.

Thailand is yet to ratify the convention, and while Vitoon would

like to see Bangkok do so, he would first like the government to

`accept and guarantee farmers' rights and by law protect the

indigenous knowledge of farmers'. - Third World Network

Features/IPS

ends.

About the writers: Yuli Ismartono and Teena Gill are corre-

spondents for Inter Press Service, with whose permission this

article is reprinted.

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.

1401/95

###RELAYED TEXT ENDS###

You are encouraged to utilize this information for personal

campaign use; including writing letters, organizing campaigns and

forwarding. All efforts are made to provide accurate, timely

pieces; though ultimate responsibility for verifying all

information rests with the reader. Check out our Gaia Forest

Archives at URL= http://gaia1.ies.wisc.edu/research/pngfores/

Networked by:

Ecological Enterprises || Phone/Fax->(608) 233-2194

Email-> gbarry@forests.org