| Negotiations at the UN Conference on Biological Diversity (CBD) continue this week in Brazil. After last week's important victory against Terminator/ GURTS, there is plenty of work yet to be done to protect biodiversity and the rights of communities whos
One issue that has yet to gain sufficient recognition at the CBD for its threat to forests is the issue of GM trees. Pollen from trees can travel for thousands of kilometres, and if GM, could easily cross-pollinate or affect peoples' health, even across borders. A group of 9 forest-rich developing countries have been calling for a moratorium on the development of GM trees, until more is known about the negative effects.
But one of the main issues of discussion and controversy at the CBD, is the issue of Access and Benefit Sharing over biodiversity. There has long been a struggle between developed and developing countries, which reflects the opposed interests of industry and indigenous peoples, when it comes to the patenting of indigenous knowledge and genetic resources for commercial medicinal, agricultural and other applications.
The Coalition Against Biopiracy describe Biopiracy as " The monopolization (usually through intellectual property) of genetic resources and traditional knowledge or culture taken from peoples or farming communities that developed and nurtured those resources."
It used to be that you could only patent an invention. But international law, as promoted by the WTO's TRIPS agreement has shifted the interpretation of this to effectively include discoveries as well as inventions. The TRIPS laws do not protect the originators of the knowledge, but only the interests of the first person to claim the patent, so companies are free to claim patents on stolen traditional knowledge and resources, in order to prevent any others from using them without their permission.
In CBD negotiations, developing countries and civil society have been calling for a framework that protects communities and biodiversity, and debating the relative benefits and flaws of patents on life, prior informed consent, equitable sharing of benefits, certification of origin, and other concepts.
The Coalition Against Biopiracy held their "Captain Hook Awards" against Biopiracy in Curitiba, Brazil, last week, in order to raise the profile of the issue at the CBD, and many familiar villains were "winners". Those who have been fighting Biopiracy and for the rights of communities to preserve and use their biological resources, were also honoured with "Cog Awards."
You will be pleased and proud to know that the Africa Group at the CBD won "Best Advocate" award, "For defending biodiversity and Farmers’ Rights by leading strong opposition to Terminator technology at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity since 1998."
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1. Ban GM Trees, Say Forest-Rich Developing Countries
Article from Panos. Date: 24 March 2006
Rod Harbinson
http://www.panos.org.uk/global/cbd2006_summit5.asp
2. Who Has Access to Biodiversity?
Article from Inter Press Service. Date: 27 March 2006
Mario Osava*
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32616
3. Creating a Network Against Biopiracy
Article from Inter Press Service. Date: 27 March 2006
Mario Osava
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32666
4. Terminator Seeds Suffer Defeat at Global Conference
Mario Osava
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32643
5. Captain Hook Awards for Biopiracy 2006
Announcement from Coalition Against Biopiracy. Date: 24 March 2006
http://captainhookawards.piranho.de/winners/2006_pirates/
6. Winners of the 2006 Cog Awards for Resisting Biopiracy...
Announcement from the Coalition Against Biopiracy. Date: 24 March 2006
http://captainhookawards.piranho.de/winners/2006_cogs/
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1. Ban GM Trees, Say Forest-Rich Developing Countries
Article from Panos. Date: 24 March 2006
Rod Harbinson
http://www.panos.org.uk/global/cbd2006_summit5.asp
Nine developing countries attending a global biological diversity meeting have supported calls for a moratorium on genetically modified trees.
With pollen from trees able to travel long distances, they’re worried about the impact on their GM-free native forests.
[Curitiba, Brazil - PANOS] Developing countries with forests that are rich in biological diversity have rallied around a call for a moratorium on genetically modified (GM) trees, fearing pollen from them may drift to other countries and spoil native forests.
The moratorium was proposed by the government delegations of Iran and Ghana at a global meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in this Brazilian city on Wednesday.
Concern over the issue has mounted since China commercialised GM poplar trees in 2003. Its transgenic poplars have been genetically modified to include a Bt (Bacillus Thuringiensis) toxin that kills insects. But China kept a low profile at the Curitiba debate and their delegates declined to comment to Panos on the issue.
However, Dr Micheal Hansen, senior scientist at the Consumers’ Union in the United States, told Panos that the Chinese now have over one million seedlings of GM trees. He has been studying Bt toxicity closely and is concerned about the human health impacts of the spread of Bt toxin from wind blown tree pollen.
Quoting a number of scientific studies, Hansen said that “pollen from GM trees can lead to potent allergic reactions and adverse effects on the gut” caused by the GM proteins they contain.
According to Anne Peterman, co-director of the Global Justice Ecology Project, a US-based non-governmental organisation, who addressed the CBD meeting, pollen from trees has been shown to travel over 1,200 km in North America.
“This means that transgenic trees cannot be regulated only at the national level. Transboundary contamination of native forests with transgenic traits is virtually assured. The Biosafety Protocol, which is based on national borders, is not adequate,” she said.
The moratorium proposal was supported by nine countries - Ghana, Ecuador, Egypt, Iran, Madagascar, Malawi, Philippines, Rwanda and Senegal. Some of them, such as Madagascar, Ecuador and Ghana, have large tracts of native forests that are home to many rare and indigenous plants. They voiced concern over the consequences of releasing GM trees on forest biodiversity.
The motion was opposed by only Australia and Canada, both of which have scientific or commercial interests in the technology. But they too agreed that experts need to conduct a detailed investigation into the impact of GM trees.
The representative of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), an intergovernmental organisation based in Switzerland, told the meeting that he “would like to ask that these [GM] forests, whenever they are present, should be sterile”.
However, geneticist Dr Ricarda Steinbrecher of the Federation of German Scientists said sterility is not the answer to genes escaping, adding: “All methods of genetically engineered sterility are imperfect and therefore such sterility cannot be relied upon as a gene-containment method.”
Alwin Kopse, a spokesman for the Swiss biotech corporation, Syngenta, said that, “In some areas like fruits, the fact that you have sterile plants is well accepted” - giving the example of seedless melons.
Most current research and development on GM trees is focused on the paper industry and plantation trees, such as poplar and eucalyptus. Research on insect resistance, faster growth and reduced lignin content (a chemical in trees that is unwanted in the pulping process) are most common.
However, researchers are also developing GM fruit and nut trees, such as papaya, for human consumption.
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2. Who Has Access to Biodiversity?
Article from Inter Press Service. Date: 27 March 2006
Mario Osava*
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32616
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 23 (Tierramérica) - Biologically mega-diverse countries, including Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, are calling for a binding global policy to regulate who has access to biodiversity. The proposal is up for discussion at an international environmental meeting this week in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba, but the goal remains far out of reach.
"The negotiation has been difficult and this process could take a couple more years," Hesiquio Benítez told Tierramérica. He is a member of the Mexican delegation to the 8th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP8), which will include a draft policy among its agenda priorities.
Limited progress is expected during the conference, but not an agreement, given that the issue tends to exacerbate the North-South disputes. In February, during the last preparatory meeting for the COP8 in Granada, Spain, the parties were only able to produce a document full of parentheses -- proof of the lack of consensus.
The policy regime would establish rules for the use of genetic resources derived from traditional knowledge and for the fair distribution of the benefits, as established under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Most of the developing countries that are rich in biodiversity are advocating for an obligatory regime -- an idea that many industrialised nations reject.
Negotiations are slow because they involve "economic interests," acknowledged Eduardo Vélez, director of genetic heritage at the Environment Ministry of Brazil, the host country and chair of COP8. Though he did say he is optimistic that "in Curitiba there will be important steps forward."
According to Vélez, the United States, Japan and the European Union have not said they oppose such a regime outright, but they have adopted "delay tactics", calling for more studies on its possible effects on the chain of production.
These countries also have suggested a voluntary approach, "which is unacceptable because it is nothing. What we want is a binding agreement with sanctions," said the Brazilian official.
Millions of dollars in trade are at stake in the debate, and business in this sector is expanding rapidly in pace with the development of biological sciences and technologies.
In recent years, bacteria inserted into plants in order to fix nitrogen from the air have helped Brazilian farmers save tens of billions of dollars in fertilisers and biologically control several kinds of crop pests.
But despite biodiversity's fundamental role in maintaining life on Earth, exploitation of this natural wealth lacks regulations.
The CBD opened the way, but there is a long way to go to put rules into concrete practice. The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, approved in 2000 and in force since 2003, is among the first positive results.
Fewer than 20 countries have passed national laws on access to biodiversity, says Vélez. The Brazilian government is preparing to send a related bill to its National Congress.
Much of the access by foreigners to a country's biodiversity still occurs illegally. Patents and products are coming from genetic materials used without the permission of the country of origin, said Vélez. Without an international policy, the CBD is dead letter, he stressed.
"We want to prevent biopiracy," added Mexican delegate Benítez, head of international affairs for his government's National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity, CONABIO.
Genetic resources, said Benítez, often come out of the traditional knowledge that is not recognised when the resulting products are patented in the industrialised countries.
"Mexico wants to regulate legal access, and, if necessary, require the consent of the indigenous communities involved," which implies royalties and other benefits for the country of origin of the biological resources, he said.
At the COP8, Mexico will propose "a clear mandate so that an inter-governmental negotiation group can push the international regime as quickly as possible," he said. The Mexican government, under President Vicente Fox, also proposes a "certification of legal origin" as a requirement for patents that are based on biodiverse genetic resources.
The fact that the United States would grant a patent for ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic plant considered sacred by indigenous communities in the Amazon, proves that "today biopiracy is a reality," said Juan Mayr, former environment minister of Colombia.
The industrialised nations want easy access through "a lax system that doesn't protect our natural heritage, and much less our traditional knowledge," said Mayr.
Brazil, Colombia and Mexico stand to benefit from a binding policy regime, as they head the list of 17 mega-diverse countries in the world, which concentrate 70 percent of the known plant and animal species.
Also on the list are Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, United States, China, India and several African and Asian nations.
Brazil, with 200,000 registered species -- 10 percent of what is estimated to exist in this South American country -- holds 15 to 20 percent of the Earth's total. Colombia and Mexico, with around 10 percent each, are also among the four most biodiverse countries, along with Indonesia.
In Colombia, plants -- the greatest source of the country's biological wealth -- include 45,000 to 55,000 species, with one-third being endemic. The stars of the Colombian world of flora are the orchids, with some 3,500 species, or 15 percent of the global total.
Brazil is the world leader in endemic species and champion in biodiversity. Its 3,000 species of freshwater fish are triple the total of any other country. Its main farm products -- coffee, sugar, soybeans, rice and oranges -- originated in other places, but many other economically important plants are native, including peanuts, pineapple, manioc, cashews and chestnuts.
Numerous products and byproducts derived from Brazil's massive biodiversity have been patented in other countries. Five Amazonian plants have each generated around 20 of these patents, which are of questionable legitimacy, according to Vélez.
Because of these shared problems and interests, Latin American countries tend to unite in favour of an international biodiversity regime. Even Argentina -- like Chile, hesitant on this matter -- surprised many when it decided to support the proposal at the last preparatory meeting for the COP8.
Argentina seeks to build common strategies within the Latin American and Caribbean group, Homero Bibiloni, deputy secretary of natural resources of the Secretariat of Environment and Sustainable Development, told Tierramérica.
"Even though we aren't mega-diverse like Brazil or Mexico, we want to be in harmony with the region's position and reach a consensus proposal. We don't want our natural resources to be patented," he said.
(* Mario Osava is an IPS correspondent. With reporting by Marcela Valente in Argentina, Yadira Ferrer in Colombia and Diego Cevallos in Mexico. Originally published Mar. 18 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)
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3. Creating a Network Against Biopiracy
Article from Inter Press Service. Date: 27 March 2006
Mario Osava
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32666
CURITIBA, Brazil, Mar 27 (IPS) - Two patents granted in the United States between 2000 and 2002 and another for which an application has been filed have put "maca", a high altitude Andean plant that is used by indigenous people in Peru, at the centre of a new battle against biopiracy, which involves the construction of an international network against the misappropriation of traditional knowledge.
One of the patented maca-based products claims to raise testosterone levels. But the countries that registered the plant "did not invent a thing," said lawyer Isabel Lapeña, with the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law. "They merely took advantage of indigenous, campesino knowledge of the plant, which is known as ‘natural viagra'," she told IPS.
News of the patent was met with howls of outrage, and a working group was set up by campesinos (peasant farmers) and scientists to study maca-related patents that have been registered in the United States, and investigate ways of challenging them.
A National Commission for the Protection of Biodiversity and "the collective knowledge of indigenous peoples" was also established two years ago.
Peruvian activists are now encouraging the replication of their experience, through the creation of similar movements in other countries, by means of the Andean-Amazon Initiative for the Prevention of Biopiracy.
The initiative, which is to be extended beyond South America's Andean and Amazon regions, so far includes partner institutions in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.
The idea is to combat all kinds of biopiracy, and it is useful to be able to refer to cases that have had major repercussions, like the ones involving maca in Peru and cupuaçú in Brazil, said Lapeña.
Cupuaçú is an Amazon fruit from the cacao family, which is used to produce chocolate-like sweets, beverages and other products for export. Several years ago, a Japanese company registered the name of the fruit as a trademark, but thanks to legal action, the patent was annulled.
Today, Amazonlink, the same non-governmental organisation based in the Amazon jungle state of Acre that spearheaded the campaign "Cupuaçú Is Ours" is focusing on another case of biopiracy.
Several U.S. companies, universities and researchers, including the Seattle-based ZymoGenetics Inc., have filed for patents for a toxin found in the skin of the Monkey frog (Phyllomedusa bicolor).
The secretion has traditionally been used by indigenous communities in the Amazon jungle in shamanic hunting rituals.
Pharmaceutical companies and researchers found that the secretion contains new peptides that have analgesic properties and are capable of combating ischemia, a condition in which the blood flow (and thus oxygen) is restricted to a part of the body, said Michael Schmidlehner, president of Amazonlink.
"We do not want to overturn the patents," said the activist, who also pointed out that synthetic versions of the peptides have already been produced.
But the case serves to highlight the need for "informed prior consent", as established by the Convention on Biological Diversity, before traditional knowledge is used, and to distribute the benefits of such knowledge among its holders, he said.
What such cases involve is "theft," said Manoel Roque de Souza, better known as Roque Yawanawá, from the Yawanawá people in the state of Acre.
The Yawanawá are among the communities that use the secretion from the frog for medicinal and ritual purposes, as do other indigenous groups in Brazil and Peru, like the Katukina, Ashaninka and Kaxinawá.
The case of the Monkey frog prompted the Yawanawá leaders to contact Amazonlink to help orient their actions. That gave rise to the "Vigilant Villages Project", aimed at raising the awareness of, and training, indigenous communities to help prevent corporate biopiracy.
The Initiative for the Prevention of Biopiracy is seeking to expand the network of organisations involved in fighting biopiracy, encourage investigations, disseminate information, and even influence institutions that deal with patents, like the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), said the Peruvian activist, Lapeña.
Many of the patent applications filed in Brazil do not even mention the origin of the genetic material that was used to make the product in question, said Henry Novion, with the non-governmental Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA).
The Mar. 20-31 Eighth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP8) taking place in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba is tackling several related issues.
The most controversial aspect of the debates involves access to genetic resources and the distribution of the benefits derived from them, a point of especial interest to "megadiverse" countries - countries with enormous biological diversity - and indigenous and other rural communities.
The creation of an international regime to regulate such questions, within the framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity, has been proposed. It would include mechanisms to ensure that the holders of traditional knowledge receive a fair share of the benefits generated, monetary or otherwise.
Another point of concern for indigenous and other local communities involves the protection of "traditional knowledge, practices and innovations," as an aspect of the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, in accordance with the commitment assumed by the signatories to the Convention. But so far, few nations have adopted programmes or taken steps towards that end.
The Convention on Biological Diversity is seen by many environmentalists as a counterweight to the WTO when it comes to the question of patents. "In the WTO, the rights of traditional knowledge-holders are not taken into consideration," complained Lapeña. (END/2006)
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4. Terminator Seeds Suffer Defeat at Global Conference
Mario Osava
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32643
CURITIBA, Brazil, Mar 24 (IPS) - Small farmers and activists celebrated a triumph against Terminator seeds in Brazil Friday, but said they would not let down their guard, and would continue to fight the seeds.
The working group in charge of addressing the issue at the Eighth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP8) maintained the moratorium on field trials of Terminator technology, which produces seeds whose sterile offspring cannot reproduce.
The decision is still pending a vote in next Friday's plenary session in the Mar. 20-31 conference taking place in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba. But that will merely be a formality.
Only Australia, Canada and New Zealand tried to leave a door open, pushing for "case-by-case" evaluation of permits for field testing, which critics say would weaken the moratorium put in place in 2000 on Terminators, or GURTS (Genetic Use Restriction Technologies).
For the stance they took in this case, and with regard to transgenic crops in general, Australia, Canada and New Zealand were granted the "evil axis" award by an informal coalition of civil society groups that annually hands out the Captain Hook Awards for Biopiracy.
The coalition awarded 10 "prizes" to "biopirates" as well as 10 "cog awards for resisting biopiracy". (Cogs were ships designed to repel attacks by pirates).
The United States won the award for "most despicable" act of biopiracy, for imposing plant intellectual property laws on occupied, war-torn Iraq in June 2004, making it illegal for Iraqi farmers to re-use seeds harvested from new varieties registered under the law.
Swiss biotech giant Syngenta was voted the worst threat to food sovereignty, for its patent on the Terminator potato.
The global small farmer movement Vía Campesina has held near daily demonstrations since COP8 began on Monday, to demand a ban on Terminator seeds.
On Friday, it announced that it would continue holding protests in Curitiba to call for a total worldwide ban on Terminator technology.
Other activists also said they would keep up their guard, even while they celebrated the victory. "There are governments and companies that will keep trying to produce ‘suicide seeds'," said Maria Rita Reis, with the Brazilian NGO Terra de Direitos.
GURTS, as Terminator technologies are referred to in the Convention on Biological Diversity, produce "suicide seeds" or "homicide seeds" stressed Hope Shand, research director for the ECT Group (Action Group on Erosion, Concentration and Technology), a Canada-based organisation that works to defend cultural and ecological diversity and human rights.
The commercialisation of Terminator seeds, which would make it impossible for farmers to save seeds from their harvests, would provoke enormous losses for farmers, forcing them off the land and exacerbating hunger and poverty, she maintained.
According to ECT Group estimates, soybean production in Argentina would be hit by an additional 276 million dollars in annual costs, while the cost of wheat production in Pakistan would be 191 million dollars higher.
Numerous activists emphasised that potential contamination and sterilisation of other species would have catastrophic results. There is no need for "field testing" to establish that this technology poses a threat to all life on earth, just as there is no need for field testing on the effects of torture, one activist commented.
The protests voiced by small farmers and environmentalists have fallen on more than fertile ground. Restrictions on Terminator seeds have enjoyed majority support from the outset of COP8. In the European Parliament, this position earned 419 votes in favour and a mere 15 against.
Within the Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC) there is a consensus on maintaining the moratorium on field trials and commercial releases of Terminator seeds and rejecting the proposal for a "case by case" assessment, Alicia Torres, director of Uruguay's National Environment Office and head of her country's delegation to COP8, told IPS.
In the meantime, Syngenta is currently facing troubles in Brazil that go beyond acts of protest.
In addition to the occupation of its test field since Mar. 14 by close to 1,000 rural activists from Brazilian groups associated with the Via Campesina network - like the Movement of Landless Rural Workers û the transnational corporation has just been hit with a fine of one million reals (470,000 dollars) from Brazil's environmental authority.
The sanction stems from the fact that Syngenta's transgenic soybean test crops in Santa Teresa, in the southern state of Paraná, violate national laws because they are located too close to Iguaçú National Park, a nature preserve.
Syngenta and Monsanto have both been consistently targeted by protesters at the parallel meetings to COP8 and by the Global Civil Society Forum, a gathering of social movements and non-governmental organisations held in tents outside the Expo Trade Centre, the venue of the official conference. (END/2006)
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5. Captain Hook Awards for Biopiracy 2006
Announcement from Coalition Against Biopiracy. Date: 24 March 2006
http://captainhookawards.piranho.de/winners/2006_pirates/
Biopiracy refers to the monopolization (usually through intellectual property) of genetic resources and traditional knowledge or culture taken from peoples or farming communities that developed and nurtured those resources.
Worst Threat to Food Sovereignty:
Syngenta
For its Terminator-like patent designed to prevent potatoes from sprouting, despite the company’s pledge not to commercialize technologies involving sterile seed. US patent 6,700,039 describes a genetic modification method that prevents sprouting unless an external chemical inducer is applied.
And for Syngenta’s multi-genome patent applications on thousands of gene sequences vital for rice breeding and extending to dozens of other plant species.
Greediest Biopirate:
J Craig Venter
For undertaking, with flagrant disregard for national sovereignty over biodiversity, a US-funded global biopiracy expedition on his yacht, Sorcerer II, to collect and sequence microbial diversity from the world’s oceans and soils. The genetic material will play a role in his most ambitious project to date: building an entirely new artificial organism.
Biggest Threat to Genetic Privacy:
Google Inc.
For teaming up with J. Craig Venter to create a searchable online database of all the genes on the planet so that individuals and pharmaceutical companies alike can ‘google’ our genes – one day bringing the tools of biopiracy online.
Extreme Makeover Award:
Delta & Pine Land
For vowing, since 1998, to commercialize Terminator technology. Initially, D&PL promoted genetic seed sterilization for use in the South to prevent farmers from re-using seed. After massive protest, the company changed its tune and said Terminator was primarily intended for Northern farmers. Now the company is greenwashing Terminator by promoting it as a biosafety tool to contain gene flow – for farmers everywhere!
Most Shameful Act of Biopiracy:
US Government
For imposing plant intellectual property laws on war-torn Iraq in June 2004. When US occupying forces “transferred sovereignty” to Iraq, they imposed Order no. 84, which makes it illegal for Iraqi farmers to re-use seeds harvested from new varieties registered under the law. Iraq’s new patent law opens the door to the multinational seed trade, and threatens food sovereignty.
Worst Déjà Vu:
Human Genographic Project
For resurrecting the old (much discredited) Human Genome Diversity project with new corporate money. IBM and the National Geographic Society are spending $40 million dollars and establishing ten research centers around the globe to collect and analyse more than 100,000 DNA samples from indigenous people, claiming this will help them understand their ancestry.
Access of Evil Award:
Canada, Australia, New Zealand
For repeated attempts to undermine the de facto moratorium on Terminator technology at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). And for their betrayal of Indigenous Peoples at the CBD’s Working Group on 8(j) in Spain.
Biggest Tiny Claim On Nature:
Nanosys, Inc.
For securing a US patent on ‘metal-oxide nanorods’ covering more than a third of the chemical elements of the periodic table.
Worst Betrayal:
Genencor et al.
For patenting, cloning and selling “extremophile” microorganisms that were collected from lakes in Kenya without the permission of Kenyan authorities or the collaborating Kenyan researcher. The microorganisms produce industrially-important enzymes (used to fade blue jeans) that reap millions for industry but nothing for Kenya.
Most Hypocritical - Joint Winners:
University of California-Davis
For patenting a blight-resistant gene extracted from a rice variety developed by the Bela peoples of Mali, and for failing to deliver on the Genetic Resources Recognition Fund to benefit Mali’s farmers. The Philippines-based public plant breeding institute – the International Rice Research Institute – handed over the blight resistant rice sample to UC-Davis researchers in 1990. But when IRRI requested access to the blight resistant gene derived from the sample, UC-Davis demanded a $10,000 fee.
The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO)
For writing Bonn-inspired bioprospecting guidelines for use by BIO member companies and then inviting the companies to ignore them.
The Coalition Against Biopiracy is an informal group of civil society and peoples' organisations that first came together at the 1995 Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Jakarta. Groups involved in the coalition include the Indigenous Peoples Biodiversity Network, SEARICE and ETC Group
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6. Winners of the 2006 Cog Awards for Resisting Biopiracy...
Announcement from the Coalition Against Biopiracy. Date: 24 March 2006
http://captainhookawards.piranho.de/winners/2006_cogs/
Best Peoples Defense - Joint winners
In Defense of Maize Network and the Wixárika (Huichol) People, México
For widening the scope of their fight – from a protest against GM contamination of native maize to an integrated territorial struggle that holistically encompasses self-government, water, forests, fauna, paths, sacred land, language and teaching. Last year, the Wixárika People got back 10,200 hectares of land for their communities.
Deccan Development Society (India)
For two decades of organizing successful seed sovereignty systems among Dalit women’s communities in Medak District of Andhra Pradesh. Also for their groundbreaking grassroots research into the effects of Bt cotton that persuaded the government of Andhra Pradesh to kick Monsanto out of the state.
Best Defense of Food Sovereignty
La Via Campesina
For their global Seeds Campaign begun in 2003, asserting the rights of small farmers to select, sort, exchange and re-sow their seeds and resisting control by the multinational seed and biotech industry.
Best Advocate
The African Group at CBD
For defending biodiversity and Farmers’ Rights by leading strong opposition to Terminator technology at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity since 1998.
Lifetime Achievement Award
Community Biodiversity Development and Conservation Programme
For ten years of farmer-led research around the world, developing and sharing farming methods to enhance agricultural biodiversity, protect seeds, cultures and livelihoods and affirming food sovereignty.
Best Exposé
Edmonds Institute and African Centre for Biosafety
For their research resulting in the Out of Africa report (2006), which documents 34 recent cases of biopiracy involving African plants, animals and microbes.
Most Satisfying Victory, Finally
Magda Aelvoet, former president of the Green Group in the European Parliament, Dr. Vandana Shiva, of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy and Linda Bullard, of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements
For challenging a patent at the European Patent Office (EPO) on the preparation of a fungicide derived from the seeds of the neem tree. For centuries, farmers have used neem oil for its fungicidal properties. The patent was revoked in 2000, but it took almost five more years for the EPO to finally dismiss an appeal of the 2000 revocation. |
