After reading this article you will learn about bio prospecting, bio piracy and biosafety.
Bio Prospecting:
This is a kind of commercial venture for utilizing plants or plant products in large scale community as an usable commodity. Over past couple of decades enormous studies were made in such kind of bio prospecting activities.
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Various companies in USA/Europe already marketed a number of such products, and many companies now actively engage their manpower on R&D related to bio prospecting potentiality assessment of both terrestrial and aquatic resources. A list of some selected companies of the world which already started bio prospecting activities is given in Table 6.9.
Bio Piracy:
This is a kind of procurement of biological wealth from other countries and subsequent patentisation of their products for commercial purpose. This is an unethical transaction of live materials and their subsequent patentisation of the products as made by transactional companies (TNCs) began in the wake of Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and WTO regime.
Most of the recent Western patents on biodiversity, whose raw materials are obtained from Third World countries and thus their claim of novelty in the properties and uses which they patentized is fraudulent. Such knowledge mostly lies within the indigenous communities over centuries.
Thus, for example, Ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis coapi) of the Amazon and mustard (Brassica campestis) of India have been patented by TNCs for their novel properties, claimed to have been invented by TNCs.
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Over 110 patents on 29 plants from India, raised a serious concern of marketing various bio resources of India.
These include spices like kalojeera (Cyminum cuminum), gol marich (Piper nigrum), ada (Zingiber officinale), edible fruits like jackfruit (Artocarpus integrifolia) and ber (Zizyphus jujuba) and medicinal plants like neem (Azadirachta indica), ghritakumari (Aloe barbadensis) and dudhi (Euphorbra hirta), and also the globally renowned fragrant rice “Basmati“.
These are clear cases of ‘bio piracy’ as these patents clearly take the rights of marketing and exclusive use for commercial purpose though the centre of origin and their distribution lies in other countries. The first campaign against bio-piracy was the “Neem campaign“.
It was challenged in US Patent & Trademark office and European Patent office to disapprove the WR. Grace’s neem patent (No. 5124349) and European patent (No. 436257BI), respectively. On the whole, these patents were found to violate the criteria of “novelty” and “prior knowledge” criteria that must be fulfilled before granting patents.
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The Govt. of India challenged the US patent on turmeric and basmati and is preparing to challenge two more patents on ginger and karala. In the course of lawsuit on turmeric, a patent on turmeric was revoked. But there are numerous such patents on various elements of Indian biodiversity (36 on neem, 13 on mustard and so on) and there seems to be much difficulty in dismantling the basmati patent.
Thus, it appears that by an introduction of a simple anti-bio piracy law in India, one could derecognize any patents on life forms of this country will appear to be more effective in upholding rights of indigenous people to access to, use of and trade and in all indigenous materials.
Biosafety:
The biosafety protocol under the CBD Article 19 (3) was to be an important product emerging from international negotiations over a two-year period but, faced with US and UK opposition, it could not receive global approval.
At the Second COP, in 1995, the Parties to the CBD urged establishment of an open-ended ad hoc working group of experts who can help develop a biosafety protocol for the Convention. The group met several times after its establishment in July 1996 to develop the protocol which was to be adopted by the CBD at an extraordinary COP in February 1999.
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The provisions in the protocol include those relating to safety in biotechnology for research and development of Living Modified Organisms (LMOs), their use, distribution, handling, exchange, movement, risk assessment and risk management procedures, trade, socio-economic and environmental impacts of LMOs and the related.
One of the contentious issues was the liability and compensation clause in case of any adverse effect.
India’s position on Biosafety matters has always been positive with a precautionary approach as envisaged by the Preamble of the CBD. India already has developed a regulatory framework for recombinant DNA research within India which is being implemented through the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Department of Science and Technology.
There are provisions for establishing committees to monitor and advise safety in Biotechnology at the institutional level as well at the national level through the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee which has scientists as members.
Though implementation of the provisions is carried out scientifically, one of the major criticisms has been that the process is not transparent. Also there is no due representation of the civil society in the decision-making process.
The outcry on Monsanto’s Bollgard cotton trials in India is an example of the need for careful attention if there is to be public acceptance of the technology. The regulators must take into confidence the public in the implementation process by ensuring representation of civil society and the media in the committee.
The DBT need to publish, in the vernacular press, any future permits for field testing of LMOs so that the public is informed about the process. To prevent any entry of unwanted technologies like the ‘Terminator technology’ into the country there is a need for enhanced awareness and training of our quarantine officials.
Efforts by the DBT in creating such awareness programmes for scientists by conducting workshops and seminars is a way toward indeed for the implementation of the biosafety protocol, once it is in place.