Business concerns in the West often make money by patenting their own medicines and agricultural products based on the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples.
A US company has patented a yellow bean grown for thousands of years in South America, while pesticides using substances from the Indian neem tree have been sold by transnational corporations in Europe and elsewhere.
A firm in Germany is marketing a cure for respiratory ailments based on extracts from the African Pelargonium plant genus.
Some of these patents have been returned after years of litigation, but that is not enough for some participants at the UN conference on biodiversity, which takes place in Bonn, Germany, tomorrow through May 30.
The UN gathering wants to make traditional knowledge less vulnerable to unauthorized use and ensure that adequate financial compensation is made to the communities that possess such knowledge.
“The foundation stone has to be laid so that we can come to a concrete agreement by 2010,” said Konrad Uebelhoer, biodiversity director at the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ).
One of the main demands, he said, is that business and researchers be required to seek permission in the individual countries before they start searching for medicinal plants or genes.
The local communities should also be consulted in the application of traditional knowledge, which is based on practice and has often been passed on through many generations.
“It is necessary to have a clear formula for profit-sharing,” Uebelhoer said.
This could also include transferring the technology used to identify the active ingredients to the countries of origin, he said.
About 190 nations have signed up to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. The only industrialized nation that has not joined is the US.
Washington does not object to the first two goals of the convention — the protection of biodiversity and its sustainable development, Uebelhoer said.
It is the third aim of justly distributing the profits from the use of biological agents that has run into opposition from the powerful US pharmaceutical industry, he said.
Andreas Drews, who also works for the GTZ, said those applying for patents were not required to state where the biological ingredients come from, leading to an undetermined amount of biopiracy.
He wants changes made to the way patents are granted in order to stop this practice.
“We demand a formal disclosure of where the resources come from before biological ingredients, novel food and cosmetics can be registered,” he said.
“Novel food” is the term used for new foodstuffs, in particular genetically modified foods.
This is already the case in Norway, said Drews, whose organization is responsible for carrying out projects authorized by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
There has already been some success in ensuring that some of the wealth gained from derivatives of traditional knowledge is returned to the holders of that knowledge.
Among the beneficiaries are the San people in southern Africa, said Frank Barsch, an expert on the protection of species at the environmental organization WWF.
These hunter-gatherers chew the cactus-like hoodia plant to still hunger and thirst pangs on their long journeys through the inhospitable Kalahari desert.
The South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) isolated the appetite suppressant P57 contained in the plant and patented it as a dietary supplement. Dutch-based Unilever is now developing the product.
After much protest, CSIR signed a deal with the San in 2003 on sharing the potential benefits of the product, which is being touted as a potential cure for obesity.
Under the deal, to which Unilever is expected to contribute from next year, San communities will be able to access royalties from a trust fund to finance social projects.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
RSS