commercialisation and taxonomy I

[Peter Stevens]

This may be of some interest; I had to divide it into two parts - Peter S.

Biologists Sought a Treaty; Now They Fault It

New York Times, May 7, 2002

By ANDREW C. REVKIN




A treaty enacted nine years ago to conserve and exploit the
diversity of species on earth is seriously impeding
biologists' efforts to catalog and comprehend that same
natural bounty, many scientists say.

They say the treaty has spawned paralyzing biological
bureaucracies built on the widespread belief that any
scientist collecting samples - whether for a drug company
or a dissertation - is bent on stealing genetic material
and making a fortune.

As a result, biologists say, in many tropical regions it is
easier to cut a forest than to study it.

"Something that was well intentioned and needed has been
taken to an illogical extreme," said Dr. Douglas C. Daly, a
curator of Amazonian botany at the New York Botanical
Garden, who has worked in Brazil for 20 years in
partnerships with Brazilian scientists, but recently had to
wait a year and a half for a new research visa.

"The net result has been that it's kept biologists out of
the forests," Dr. Daly said. "That plays into the hands of
the forces of uncontrolled development. If a tree falls in
the forest and there's no biologist there to hear it, it
definitely doesn't make a sound."

Some officials in restrictive countries have begun to
concede as much. For example, Brazil, which in 2000 stopped
all exports of biological samples, even to Brazilians
working abroad, has convened a National Council of Genetic
Resources charged with finding a way to resume controlled
exchanges.

The parties to the treaty, the Convention on Biological
Diversity, met last month in The Hague and adopted
voluntary guidelines aimed at distinguishing between
"bio-prospecting" and basic science. But the parties,
numbering 183, have yet to negotiate the details, and even
after they are complete, signers are free to maintain
existing rules.

The United States was involved in the talks, and the
Clinton administration signed the treaty. But the Senate,
lobbied by agriculture and drug companies, has never
approved it. The Bush administration is reviewing whether
to pursue ratification.

Scientists and some officials from restrictive countries
agree that the solution is a regulatory system that is more
streamlined for scientists who cede any right to profit
from their findings. But creating such a system may be
nearly impossible, because many universities, botanical
gardens and other research institutions, besides conducting
basic studies, also seek to exploit discoveries and,
sometimes, have partnerships with drug companies.

In many countries, the fight against what is called
biopiracy has proved politically popular, linking the
interests of conservative nationalists, indigenous tribes
and antiglobalization groups. In the hinterlands, the
police and, sometimes, rural villagers have detained or
chased out scientists.

Over the decades, there have been just enough examples of
furtive expropriation of natural resources to fuel such
fears, scientists say. Those include Brazil's loss of its
rubber monopoly to Britain in the 19th century - rubber
trees thrived in British-controlled Malaysia - to recent
efforts by some companies to commercialize substances from
tropical plants and animals without seeking permission or
paying royalties.

Some countries are so eager to thwart biological thievery
that they are going beyond the vague terms in the treaty.

At a meeting in February in Canc=FAn, Mexico, representatives
of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and nine other countries -
together controlling perhaps 70 percent of the world's
biological diversity - formed the Group of Allied
Mega-Biodiverse Nations. The coalition would, among other
activities, certify "the legal possession of biological
material" and negotiate terms to transfer it.

Existing and proposed restrictions in countries with
biological resources are all aimed at controlling research
by drug and biotechnology companies. But evidence has grown
that they are harming the most basic field work, even
observational studies of wildlife in which nothing is taken
away. The restrictions not only affect northern scientists'
probing southern forests, but also local scientists.

Dr. Ricardo Callejas, a professor at the University of
Antioquia in Medell=EDn, Colombia, specializes in the 2,000
species in the black pepper family. Dr. Callejas said fears
of biological theft seemed particularly intense in South
America, adding that it was "much, much easier to get
permits for collecting in the Philippines and Vietnam" than
in Colombia.

His discipline is taxonomy, basic analysis of the subtle
differences among species and a field with little
commercial appeal. Even so, Dr. Callejas said, he and his
graduate students had been accused of biopiracy and booted
from one village while on a collecting trip. He added that
he longed to collect in a dizzyingly rich area in western
Colombia, the Choco forests, but that the treaty had made
the effort impossible.

"If you request a permit," Dr. Callejas said, "you have to
provide coordinates for all sites to be visited and have to
have the approval from all the communities that live in
those areas. Otherwise, go back to your home and watch on
Discovery Channel the new exciting program on dinosaurs
from Argentina. I am still waiting after 14 months for a
permit for collecting in Choco."

Delays, fees and research restrictions in countries like
Brazil and provinces like Sarawak, the Malaysian part of
Borneo, have caused many scientists simply to abandon the
critical, difficult work of charting the still largely
unexplored maze of species.

In some cases, scientists have been detained and their
collections destroyed. In the Brazilian Amazon in 1998, an
American geographer studying the forest for hints of
ancient cultivation methods was placed under house arrest
by the federal police in Santarem, and his boat, equipment
and samples were seized.

The scientist, Joseph M. McCann, who now teaches at the New
School for Social Research in Manhattan, had all the
appropriate permits and visas. He said that he eventually
got back his gear and the title to his old riverboat, but
that most of the collection of pressed plants rotted
because the police had stored it outside. The plants had
been destined for a Brazilian herbarium, not a
pharmaceutical laboratory, he said.