Biopiracy-An outcome of the Inventions

Inclination of a human mind for the fact of being purloined could emerge out as provocation of the originality owe by someone. From a child to adult no one pleased to be away from the credit he owe for his creativity. Even the 6 year child loves his ‘Hut’ on canvas and don’t want it to be share with someone else for his credit. Now think of the person who had invented something new at the age of 60 almost devoting his whole life for his invention but the recognition for his work is being taken by someone else.If  the same thing happens on the big level like by private organizations or individual prospectors start exploiting bio-resources in areas to which they are foreign, without equitable benefit sharing and while neglecting the interests and wishes of local people; this practice is sometimes referred to as Biopiracy'.

Biopiracy generally refers to the monopolization (usually through intellectual property) of genetic resources and traditional knowledge or culture taken from peoples or farming communities that developed and nurtured those resources.

Actually the wave of exploitation started after the Columbus’s discovery of “The New World”. In his journal he has noted that “They are the best people in the world and above all the gentlest”. “They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things ... They willingly traded everything they owned. ... They do not bear arms ... They would make fine servants ... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want”.

--Christopher Columbus 

The plundering of the New World started a new era in exploitation. This wave of exploitation started from Colonization sustained with Green Revolution and now practicing Bio-Piracy. During Green Revolution the Third World Countries were persuaded to bye and plant the high yielding varieties displacing the traditional varieties. These high yielding varieties had a snag, as with the seeds were often sterile F-1 hybrids requiring the purchase of fresh seeds each season.

The wave of biopiracy aided and consolidated by intellectual property rights. Global corporations are scouring the world, extracting genetic material, and then patenting these finds as “their discoveries”.  The Third World is targeted as it has the richest genetic diversities.

Worst Threat to Food Sovereignty:

Syngenta  

its Terminator-like patent designed to prevent potatoes from sprouting, despite the company’s pledge not to commercialize technologies involving sterile seed. US patent 6,700,039 describes a genetic modification method that prevents sprouting unless an external chemical inducer is applied. And for Syngenta’s multi-genome patent applications on thousands of gene sequences vital for rice breeding and extending to dozens of other plant species.  

Greediest Biopirate:

J Craig Venter

For undertaking, with flagrant disregard for national sovereignty over biodiversity, a US-funded global biopiracy expedition on his yacht, Sorcerer II, to collect and sequence microbial diversity from the world’s oceans and soils. The genetic material will play a role in his most ambitious project to date: building an entirely new artificial organism.

Most Shameful Act of Biopiracy:

US Government

For imposing plant intellectual property laws on war-torn Iraq in June 2004. When US occupying forces “transferred sovereignty” to Iraq, they imposed Order no. 84, which makes illegal for Iraqi farmers to re-use seeds, harvested from new varieties as registered under this law. Iraq’s new patent law opens the door to the multinational seed trade, and threatens food sovereignty.

They are derisively called pirates of the new age. But unlike their counterparts of old who lay in wait to seize the goods from their victims, they go directly to the source -- plundering and looting the resources of a poor nation. They are the bio-pirates.

Some obscuring facts regarding the Bio-patents

• An estimated 30,000 plant species have edible parts, but just 3, wheat, maize, and rice, supply more than half of the worlds food (Wilson, 1992)
• As these staple foods are genetically engineered and patented, the grip of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) on the world’s food supply is tightening.
• 80% of patents on GM foods are owned by only 13 MNCs (Revill, 1999).
• The top five agrochemical companies control almost the entire global genetically modified seed market (Christian Aid, 1999).
• The genetic makeup of the biopatented seed is the property of the corporation; the farmer cannot own it, merely lease it. The farmer’s practice of saving seed for next year’s crop is a thing of the past for patented crops.
• Biopatents threaten 1.4 billion farmers in the developing world who currently depend on saved seed for the following years crop (Rural Advancement Federation International - RAFI, 1999a).

 It is easy to stopover the piracy of cassettes, Cds but difficult to put an end over biopiracy because this is the matter of colossal profit earned by the MNCs they never want to lose the Hen who lays the Golden Eggs.

COLLABORATION with research institutions, government entities or non-government organizations (particularly those involved in biodiversity conservation activities) is the easiest way for foreign bioprospectors to collect materials from a country. In exchange, as in most cases, collaborators receive compensation in the form of educational grants, facilities or transfer of technology. Depending on the contract, the issue of patent rights and percentage of royalties are either stated at the beginning of the project or to be discussed later with assurance that collaborators will share in whatever benefits that may be derived from the project.  Some elements those who are directly or indirectly indulge into the bioprospecting / biopiracy, these are:

(1) Bioprospectors. NGOs directly involved in the collection and preparation of biological specimens and supplying these resources to principal/partners. Some also provide assistance in the form of enthnobotanical information, access to communities, facilitator, interpreter, etc. In return, the NGOs receive compensation, monetary or otherwise, as part of the agreement. An example of this is the Carnivore Presentation Trust which supplied Glaxo Pharmaceuticals with more than a 100 plant samples collected from the Lao People's Democratic Republic in 1994 for $64 each.

(2) Brokers or Advisers. NGOs provide information and legal as well as technical advice to the prospectors and facilitate access to the target areas. They also help design mutually acceptable bioprospecting agreements that include partnership and benefit-sharing mechanisms. Conservation International played both broker and collector for partners that include the National Institute of Health and USAID in Suriname. It provided information and helped design the benefit-sharing mechanisms. In return, the organization received about $2.7 million which was used in part for the implementation of biodiversity conservation projects in the South.

(3) Bio-diversity Experts. Many NGOs prefer to directly take part in the formulation of policies and negotiations at the national and international levels to ensure the interest of local communities and civil society. The Third World Network and SEARICE belong to this group.

(4) Educators. NGOs that concentrate their efforts in raising the awareness of communities and other civil society organizations on the conservation and sustainable utilization of biodiversity and in bioprospecting activities 

How to stop the Biopiracy?

Putting an end to it is not an easy task as I have mentioned earlier that no one wants to lose “Golden Eggs”, so for that we needs some strong Internationally followed laws to be adopted.

Patents, intellectual property rights, exist to award intellectual endeavor “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of the matter, any new and useful improvement thereof” they were never meant to award mere discovery. On the basis of the current granting of the patents Newton could have patented the laws of Gravity, Einstein the theory of Relativity, the elements could have been patented, new plants could have been patented a royalty charged for anyone who chose to look at them, etc.