Indigenous People Demand More Over Medicinal Plants (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

	[APRIL 16, 2006]		    

INDIGENOUS PEOPLE DEMAND MORE OVER MEDICINAL PLANTS

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/04/16/1576183.htm

   (The Monitor (Uganda) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Indigenous peoples and
peasant farmers who have helped develop the world's plant genetic resources
through their traditional knowledge say negotiations aimed at the commercial
exploitation of plants must involve them from the very start.

    But their demands have turned into a long-running dispute over sovereignty,
national boundaries and ownership of knowledge. As the Curitiba meeting of the
UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) drew to a close in Curitiba
recently, the men and women who nurture the world's biodiversity struggled to
make their voices heard.
Although the Convention itself was supportive of traditional knowledge and
so-called benefit sharing, many government delegations did not include members
of indigenous populations. And those indigenous peoples who were able to make
it to Curitiba want to maintain an independent voice that recognises their
special position.
"There is a proposal to include indigenous people as part of country
delegations. But there is a problem: in the Philippines there are 110
indigenous peoples groups but the government would only allow one or two onto
the delegation," said Victorino Saway, a representative of the Panagtagbo
people who live on Mindanao Island.
He added: "When you are part of a delegation, you speak their language. You
will be controlled - your language will be controlled."
At the CBD negotiations, the issue was termed Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS),
but the official title masked potentially difficult aspects relating to
economics, politics and culture.
Indigenous peoples and smallholder farmers, through their traditional
knowledge, innovation and practices have over centuries developed and nurtured
plant species for agricultural and medicinal use, contributing not only to
'development' but also to cultural and biological diversity.
But now companies are developing medicines and crops that take advantage of
these plant genetic resources.
Keen to protect their financial interests - and recoup the investment made into
research and development - companies usually protect their products with
patents. This means that from time to time, a new product comes on the market
and reaps massive profits for the company.
Indigenous people and some developing countries with high levels of
biodiversity are now demanding ownership over what they claim are their genetic
resources. And they want to be part of negotiations about how these resources
are used, by whom, and on what terms.
A central issue is the concept of Prior Informed Consent (PIC) - an approach
supported by the CBD. "The prior informed consent of knowledge-holders must be
attained before their knowledge can be used by others," the CBD says.
Saway agrees: "If prior informed consent is ignored, there will be no basis for
negotiations. It provides a basis for saying yes or no to access."
Perhaps the most contentious issue surrounding ABS is that of national
sovereignty. As with other international agreements signed by governments on
behalf of their peoples, national sovereignty forms the very basis of the CBD.
So when an indigenous group claims knowledge of a plant, or demands to be
involved in negotiations, their government can say that the knowledge belongs
to the country as a whole, and will therefore be negotiated by the national
government.
Sylvester Rogers from Senegal, who works for the Community Biodiversity
Development Conservation Network, told the meeting: "We believe that
recognition and protection of the rights of indigenous and local communities
with regard to agro-biodiversity and their traditional knowledge is
non-negotiable and integral to any strategies and efforts towards the
sustainable management and use of biodiversity."
Without that recognition and protection, he said, the utilisation of
biodiversity will be nothing more than economic and commercial transactions,
reducing indigenous people and local communities to "mere vendors of biological
resources without respect to deeply held spiritual, cultural and socio-economic
connections to the earth and biodiversity."
Indigenous people have a powerful backer in Tewolde Egziabher, an Ethiopian
environmentalist and scientist who heads the African Group at CBD negotiations.
He supports an international regime which includes PIC and certificates of
origin of knowledge.
Such a regime, some campaigners say, would not only lead to fair and equitable
sharing of the world's biological wealth, but also result in fewer patent
disputes, some of which have grabbed headlines in recent years.
One such case involved the Hoodia plant, which pitted the San population of
southern Africa - supported by a coalition of NGOs - against western and other
pharmaceutical firms.
The Hoodia is a succulent plant - found in the Kalahari Desert - that can
suppress appetite, and could potentially be used as an anti-obesity drug.
The plant's active ingredient was patented by a South African research
institute in the late 1990s. It gave a license to a British company, which in
turn sold additional development and marketing licenses to Pfizer, the
multinational drug company, and the food giant Unilever.
After a protracted dispute, a deal was struck with the South African research
institute in 2003 whereby the San people of South Africa, Namibia, Botswana,
Zambia and Angola would receive a percentage of the royalties from the sales of
any future drugs produced from their knowledge of the Hoodia plant.
The San based their claims on a CBD provision, which says should get a share of
benefits resulting from the commercial use of local genetic resources and
traditional knowledge. But there are countless examples where indigenous
populations have lost out, as Ujalla Masdik, an Indian campaigner, reminded the
conference.
She referred to a case involving an energy-giving plant used by Kani tribal
people in the southern Indian state of Kerala. "Discovered" accidentally by
members of an Indian scientific expedition in the early 1990s, the plant, known
by the Kani as arogyapacha, was tested by a local research institute.
The institute then obtained a license from the Kerala Drug Control Department
to produce and market a tonic based on the plant. It was named Jeevani (derived
from the Sanskrit word meaning 'life').
The product was patented in 1996, following which the research institute
transferred the production license to a local drug manufacturer. Although the
Kani Trust received half the license fee and royalty, they were not involved in
the negotiations.
"Some countries have made local or national laws about indigenous people, but
others don't recognise them, or say 'we are all indigenous people'," said Saway
of the Philippines.
Saway and his colleagues, working in the Mount Kitanglad region of the
Philippines, have drawn up an inventory of plants based on their traditional
knowledge, which the community "claims as our own".
As a precaution, the inventory has been written in the community's language and
the plants' uses have not been explained. "We also have our cultural guards who
will apprehend anyone taking our customary rights without our consent," he
added.
The biotechnology industry, the usual target of attacks by NGOs and activists
working on biodiversity issues, backs an access and benefit sharing system that
is workable and provides value for use of genetic resources.
Alwin Kopse, a spokesman for the biotech corporation, Syngenta, said he
supported national regimes that were "practical and transparent". Certificates
of origin, he said, might be easier to obtain for products derived directly
from plants, rather than those that were indirectly derived.
Another problem with issuing certificates of origin, Kopse said, was that
certain genetic resources are shared across different countries or indigenous
peoples. "What we want is a workable benefits access regime" - one that is not
loaded with technocratic stamps, which, he argued "may turn out to be costly".
He accepted that the industry should now be prepared to pay for access to
genetic resources but said Syngenta prefers to offer "other benefits" rather
than hard cash.
If the CBD protocol on access and benefit sharing is to work, Kopse pointed
out, it would be important to define the nature of benefits and who should
receive them - a complex set of issues in his view.
Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media. (allafrica.com)
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