RIGHTS: Problems with Patents on Indigenous Knowledge

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, May 12 1998 (IPS) - Indigenous groups in Argentina are angry over being excluded from a biodiversity programme, run the U.S. University of Arizona, that includes research on the healing properties of native plant species.

The program is scheduled to conclude four months from now. It included the collection of thousands of species in arid zones of Argentina, Mexico and Chile, with the purpose of identifying active principals that could be applied to the pharmaceutical industry, agro-chemicals or cosmetics, and the subsequent distribution of the benefits.

When finalized, the project will have accomplished three main objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity signed by 170 countries in 1992: to preserve biodiversity, to use its components in sustainable ways, and to distribute equitably the benefits derived from its uses.

As the programme winds down in Argentina, however, indigenous leaders have denounced the ‘pillaging’ of species, extortion among indigenous groups for information in exchange for food and the failure to include native communities in the process that guarantees the distribution of royalties.

“In article 8-J, the Convention says that the indigenous groups’ knowledge should be respected, and that they should participate if their experience is going to be utilized”, said Victor Capitan, president of the Coordinating Committee of the Mapuche Parliament, which learned of the agreement only a few months ago.

In Argentina, the program to collect plant species began in 1993, and is being conducted by the National Institute for Agrarian Technology (INTA) in the southern region of Patagonia, in the provinces of Rio Negro, Neuquen and Chubut. Some 60,000 Mapuche Indians, renowned for their vast knowledge of the healing properties of plants, live in these areas.

Engineer Enrique Suarez, director of the INTA program, said that some 500 species had been collected in Argentina. Of those, 40 revealed biological activity, thus warranting further study to determine their healing potential.

The contract signed with the University of Arizona provides that if plants were found that contained properties that could be be developed, the rights would be split five percent for INTA, five percent for the Patagonica University, who also participated in the collection, and 50 percent for the region where the resource was found.

“That is no guarantee that it will reach the indigenous groups”, Suarez acknowledged. He also said that the provincial governments should participate in the collection and audit the program’s participants in order to be able to manage the eventual benefits derived from the sustainable use of genetic resources.

Suarez recalled that in March 1996, the institute organized a workshop with experts of the University of Arizona, representatives from non-governmental organizations, government officials at the national, provincial and municipal levels, and indigenous leaders. The indigenous leaders who attended did not represent the communities of the areas with the resources in question but lived and worked in the country’s capital city, Buenos Aires.

“There, we discussed the distribution of royalties, and we agreed that instead of collecting them on private farms, we would look for the resources close to the poorest indigenous communities, so that we could share the benefits with them, instead of with the rich landowners,” said Suarez.

It was after that workshop that Suarez received a phone call from the authorities of Rio Negro province asking him to participate more actively in the program. But that did not guarantee the participation of the communities themselves, argued Capitan, who was joined in his protest by other local organizations like the Indigenous Advisory Council.

“How can we verify for ourselves what they are going to do with our plants and our knowledge?” asked Capitan. “The knowledge of our elders and our machis’ (healers) is part of our biodiversity, and now we are being invaded by the collectors who take that information.”

Capitan recalled that in Patagonia there were hundreds of species (malva, nanculahun, jarilla, piedra de huanaco and tomillo, among others) which, when used in different combinations and proportions, had cured stomach diseases, allergies, heart deficiencies, ulcers and many other ills.

Suarez admitted than in the forms used for the collection, there is a line for traditional uses of the plants. But he says the collectors only indicate whether the species is “medicinal” without any more details.

The collectors go into the indigenous reservations with food and other goods and ask for information on the healing properties of the plants, with the purpose of sending to Arizona a complete report on the fieldwork, thus violating all the norms on intellectual property of the use of the species, argued Capitan.

Suarez insisted that the contract with the university is clear, and that it is available for whoever needs to see it (in its English version), although its commitment to fulfill the objectives of the Convention on Biodiversity will be only be revealed in years to come, when the real potential of the selected plants are ascertained.