BIODIVERSITY: New patents on fish and people stirs up storm at Jakarta Conference on implementing biodiversity pact

By Pratap Chatterjee Reprint | | Print |

Pratap Chatterjee

WASHINGTON, Nov 11 1995 (IPS) - The Hagahai — a small tribe in the South Pacific — and salmon from the Atlantic Ocean will share something in common next year: the right to sell genetic material from their bodies will be owned by U.S. corporations.

The Hagahai and the salmon have unique DNA — microscopic code in their genes that determines biological traits, from skin colour to susceptibility to disease. Corporations and government agencies would like to “patent” the DNA so they can re-sell it at a profit.

These patent applications have provoked a storm of protest from groups like the Community Nutrition Insitute (CNI) here and the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) in North Carolina.

Both groups have taken their concerns to a two-week international meeting in Jakarta this week. Activists, scientists and government officials gathered there to draw up plans to implement the biodiversity convention.

This is the second meeting of the signatories to the convention, which was signed by heads of state at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. The first meeting was held in Nassau in the Bahamas last year.

The secretariat of the convention — which is based in Geneva, Switzerland — has also held several meetings of experts to discuss the contentious issue of commercial use of unique genetic material.

Some individual species — or small, isolated human communities — share genetic resistance or susceptibility to particular diseases. Scientists around the world are attempting to isolate the most desirable genes for duplication and use on other species.

The activists argue that genetic material should not be bought and sold like any other commercial product. In addition, they warn that altering genetic material in a laboratory could have dangerous side-effects.

Scientists who have studied the Hagahai — a group of 240 people in the highlands of Papua New Guinea — say that the community shares certain unique blood cells which may have important disease-fighting properties.

Hoping to reap profits from that material, the government- funded National Institutes of Health applied for — and received — a U.S. patent on a Hagahai cell line earlier this year.

“In the days of colonialism, researchers went after indigenous peoples’ resources and studied their social organisations and customs. But now, in bio-colonial times, they are going after the people themselves,” says Pat Roy Mooney, RAFI’s executive director.