[Ip-health] New Scientist: Biodiversity treaty called disastrous: Scientists complain that restrictions on access hinder research, undercut development goals

[James Love]

http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20030910/03

September 10, 2003

Biodiversity treaty called disastrous:
Scientists complain that restrictions on access hinder research,
undercut development goals | By Ted Agres

The first legally binding international agreement governing the shipment
of genetically modified organisms (GMO) across borders goes into effect
tomorrow (September11). The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety requires
that the governments of signatory nations be notified when living GMOs,
such as crop plants, are going to be brought into the country with the
intention of introducing them into the environment.

Critics are already expressing concern about possible trade consequences
of the new rules, which are intended to protect native biodiversity, but
the protocol is not expected to significantly impact scientific
research. However, the biosafety protocol is only one part of a larger
treaty, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which also covers
access to indigenous plants and other genetic resources, and so far,
scientists and others say, the protocol's parent document has proved
misguided at best.

"The treaty is an absolute disaster for scientists," said a senior UN
official on condition of anonymity. "It draws no distinction between
scientists bioprospecting for drugs and pharmaceuticals, scientists
conducting academic research, and those collecting samples for
agricultural research and plant breeding. I feel sorry for the
scientists. It's a nightmare."

The CBD was concluded at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June
1992. Since then, it has been signed by 187 parties, including the
United States, the United Kingdom, and most European countries. The US
Senate, however, has never ratified the treaty, and the Bush
administration appears unlikely to push for passage.

Nevertheless, for those countries that have ratified the
treaty=97including most of the developing world=97the CBD establishes a
framework to allow access to indigenous plants, animals, and other
organisms based on "prior informed consent," under "mutually agreed
terms," and to ensure the "fair and equitable sharing of benefits"
arising from commercialization and other uses. The treaty leaves it to
each country to negotiate its own rules for access and benefit sharing.

Ironically, one of its goals=97and a reason many scientists originally
supported the treaty=97was to increase access to genetic resources. The
problem, said John H. Barton, a Stanford University law professor who
specializes in international environmental law, is that developing
countries overestimated the monetary value of their plants and other
genetic resources.

"The developing world pushed the treaty negotiations to be more about
the rights to those genetic resources than about actually protecting
biodiversity," he said. "The provisions that protect biodiversity are
pretty weak and the provisions that deal with genetic resources are
quite specific."

Douglas Daly, curator of Amazonian botany at the New York Botanical
Garden, says the problem stems from "bioparanoia"=97developing countries
believe scientists and researchers want to steal their genetic resources
to create drugs and other valuable products and not return any of the
profits. "In most diversity-rich countries, there is a lot of concern
over biopiracy. Some of it is legitimate but a lot of it is
exaggerated," Daly said. "The treaty has led to the criminalization of
the biological researcher. Everyone is suspect. As a result, people are
not doing research or graduate work in these areas."

Even local scientists are not immune. Ricardo Callejas, a biology
professor at the University of Antioqua in Medellin, Colombia, described
a recent visit he and colleagues made to an Indian reserve in the
central Colombian Amazon to research Dipterocarpaceae, a flowering plant
believed to have originated in Asia.

"The locals were so obsessed by the fact that they somehow were 'owners'
of this precious plant that, like little children, they tried very hard
to hide everything" about it, Callejas wrote in an e-mail to The
Scientist. The researchers were made to wait in the forest while the
tribe's chief sent a young boy to fetch a few branches. The scientists
were allowed to photograph the plant but not to touch it. Ten minutes
later, the boy and branches disappeared and the scientists were told to
return to their boat and leave.

"None of us was interested in the medicinal properties [of this
species]," Callejas said. "We just wanted to enjoy the experience of
knowing and learning. Biodiversity, particularly in poor countries like
mine, is very much nowadays linked to multinationals [and] exploitation.
Obviously, science itself is misunderstood and completely distorted."

The CBD has also negatively impacted agricultural research for plant
breeding and sample collection, said Cary Fowler, senior adviser to the
International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, one of a consortium of
16 major agricultural research institutes around the world known as the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Some
member centers hold the world's largest collections of biodiversity for
agriculture, crop-breeding materials, and gene banks.

"Our task has become extremely difficult since passage of the CBD,"
Fowler said. "A lot of material in our gene bank would be extinct if it
had not been collected in the past. But we're finding it harder and
harder to collect materials now." Collection samples have dropped from
about 30,000 per year to fewer than 5000 as a direct result of the
treaty, Fowler said. "The CBD is both the cause and effect of this
mentality."

Fowler, who is also research director at the Agricultural University of
Norway's Center for International Environment and Development Studies,
said he previously supported the treaty but has since changed his mind.
"For years, it was sacrilegious to say anything against the CBD. If you
did, you were reactionary and anti=96developing countries. But at what
point do you say the emperor has no clothes? The facts do not support
this treaty as being terribly productive."

Carlos M. Correa, a law professor at the University of Buenos Aires, has
surveyed access agreements made under the CBD by Andean Group countries.
The results are meager: Venezuela has signed 20 applications and 5
contracts, all from individual researchers; Bolivia has signed 3
applications and 1 contract; Colombia has yet to approve a single
contract. "Most of the applications have been made by individual
researchers from the Andean Group countries themselves, not from outside
companies," Correa said. "The assumptions about how to exploit genetic
resources were not correct."

Part of the problem may also be due to declining interest by
pharmaceutical companies in bioprospecting for new drugs. Advances in
combinatorial chemistry, genomics, and proteomics have made screening
for active molecules in the lab more cost-effective than prospecting in
nature.

In light of all these problems, the United Nations and the governments
of some developing countries are starting to recognize the need to
change the treaty's implementation. In April 2002, country
representatives met in Bonn to discuss how to improve access and benefit
sharing, but "further work is still needed to assist parties through
complimentary approaches=85 such as model agreements and model
legislation," the UN's CBD secretariat in Montreal told The Scientist.

The Bonn Guidelines will attempt to help countries distinguish between
access to genetic resources for taxonomy, collection, research, and
commercialization. Member countries have been asked to submit "action
plans" to increase access by February 2004.

For Callejas, progress on implementing the CBD must be made quickly.
"There is no way that our societies in Latin America will emerge from
centuries of poverty while holding a completely distorted view of
nature," he said. "Once we start looking at organisms as bank accounts,
then we are missing the entire view of what is in front of us. Curiosity
of the living world ends and so does the meaning of being here."

Correction (posted Sept. 11): When originally posted, this story
identified the International Plant Genetics Resources Institute as a
consortium of 16 major agricultural institutes around in the world. That
consortium, of which the Institute is a member, is the Consultative
Group on International Agricultural Research. The Scientist regrets the
error.
Links for this article
Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety
http://www.biodiv.org/biosafety/ratification.asp

"Magna Cartagena," The Financial Express, July 17, 2003.
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=3D38 242

Convention on Biological Diversity
http://www.biodiv.org

C. Holding "Sequence of the color purple," The Scientist, September 9, 2003=
.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20030909/01/

S. Bunk, "Shamans vs. synthetics," The Scientist, 14:8, July 10, 2000.
http://www.the-scientist.com/yr2000/jul/bunk_p8_000710.html

J. Kelly, "Hague meeting targets biopiracy," The Scientist, April 24, 2002.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20020424/04/



--
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org, mailto:james.love@cptech.org
tel. +1.202.387.8030, mobile +1.202.361.3040