RAFI
Rural Advancement Foundation International
www.rafi.org | rafi@rafi.org
News Release -1 December 1999
Biopiracy Project in Chiapas, Mexico
Denounced by Mayan Indigenous Groups
University of Georgia Refuses to Halt Project
Eleven indigenous peoples' organizations
are demanding that a US$2.5
million, US-government funded bioprospecting program suspend its
activities
in Chiapas, Mexico. Despite the protest by local Mayan
organizations, the
University of Georgia (US) says it will not halt the five-year
project,
which aims to collect and evaluate thousands of plants and
microorganisms
used in traditional medicine by Mayan communities.
Collectively known as the Council of Indigenous Traditional
Midwives and
Healers of Chiapas (Consejo Estatal de Parteras y Médicos
Indígenas
Tradicionales de Chiapas), the eleven Mayan organizations are
denouncing
the bioprospecting project, and they are asking other indigenous
people in
Chiapas to refuse to cooperate with the researchers. The project
is led by
the University of Georgia, in cooperation with a Mexican
university
research center, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), and
Molecular
Nature Ltd., a biotechnology company based in Wales, U.K.
What is the Chiapas ICBG Project?
The five-year project "Drug Discovery
and Biodiversity Among the Maya of
Mexico," now in its second year of operation, will receive a
total grant of
US$2.5 millions dollars from the US government's International
Cooperative
Biodiversity Groups (ICBG). The ICBG is a consortium of US
federal
agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the
National
Science Foundation (NSF) and the US Department of Agriculture
(USDA) that
awards grants to public and commercial research institutions that
conduct
bioprospecting/biopiracy programs in the South. The ICBG's
self-stated goal
is to promote drug discovery from natural sources, biodiversity
conservation and sustainable economic growth in developing
countries. For
additional information, go to:
http://www.nih.gov/fic/opportunities/icbg.html
Using indigenous knowledge to guide its research, the Chiapas
ICBG project
aims to discover, isolate and evaluate pharmacologically
important
compounds from the plant species and microorganisms employed in
traditional
Mayan medicine. The tropical mountains of Chiapas contain one of
the
richest repositories of plant and animal biodiversity in the
world. Over
the centuries, the Maya have developed a rich medical knowledge.
An
estimated 6000 plant species thrive in the area, thousands of
them used by
the Maya to treat illness. All promising biological samples will
be
screened for their activity against cancer, diseases associated
with
HIV-AIDS, central nervous system disorders, cardiovascular
disease, and
gastrointestinal, respiratory/pulmonary, skin disorders and for
contraception. The Project will also conduct a comprehensive
botanical
survey of the Central Chiapas Highlands, and it will promote
sustainable
harvest and production of selected species that show high
potential for
economic development. The project estimates that it will
ultimately
identify approximately 2000 unique compounds that will be
chemically
profiled by Molecular Nature, Ltd. the project's commercial
partner based
in the UK. A duplicate set of plants collected by the ICBG
program in
Chiapas will be deposited at the University of Georgia's
Herbarium in
Athens, Georgia.
Local Opposition
The bioprospecting program has outraged
some indigenous peoples'
organizations in Chiapas who claim that their indigenous
knowledge and
resources are being stolen. In a written declaration
distributed in
Chiapas, the Council stated: "We, as traditional indigenous
healers have
organized for the past 15 years to assert and improve our
customary medical
practices... We have appealed to national and state authorities
to suspend
this project. Now we are appealing to all indigenous peoples to
refuse to
allow the researchers of ECOSUR to remove plants and information
from our
communities."
According to Sebastian Luna, an indigenous Tzeltal spokesperson
from the
Council, "the project is a robbery of traditional indigenous
knowledge and
resources, with the sole purpose of producing pharmaceuticals
that will not
benefit the communities that have managed and nurtured these
resources for
thousands of years."
"Furthermore," continues Luna, "the project
explicitly proposes to patent
and privatize resources and knowledge that have always been
collectively
owned... Besides being totally contradictory to our culture and
traditions,
the project creates conflict within our communities as some
individuals,
pressured by the grave economic situation, collaborate with the
researchers
for a few pesos or tools."
"The project, led by anthropologist Brent Berlin of the
University of
Georgia, is plundering our knowledge and taking plant samples
from the
communities in Chiapas, returning almost nothing in
exchange," adds Luna.
Professor Berlin, who is a past president and member of the
International
Society of Ethnobiology (ISE), will host the ISE's Congress in
October,
2000 in Georgia on the topic of benefit sharing with indigenous
communities. "We believe he is openly violating the
Society's Code of
Ethics," concludes Luna. That Code, in its
"Principle of Prior Informed
Consent and Veto" states:
"the prior informed consent of all peoples and their
communities must be
obtained before any research is undertaken. Indigenous peoples,
traditional
societies and local communities have the right to veto any
programme,
project, or study that affects them. Providing prior informed
consent
presumes that all potentially affected communities will be
provided
complete information regarding the purpose and nature of the
research
activities and the probable results, including all reasonably
foreseeable
benefits and risks of harm (be they tangible or intangible) to
the affected
communities." (emphasis added) The full text is available
at:
http://guallart.dac.uga.edu/ethics
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