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Biopiracy Threat to Conservation

Feb 9 2004

Friends of the Earth International at UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Malaysia

As representatives of 187 countries today gather in Kuala Lumpur for a key meeting on biodiversity, Friends of the Earth International warned about the negative impacts of treating life as a commodity.

From February 9 - 20 the 187 parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meet for the seventh time to make decisions on a wide range of issues related to biodiversity [1].

They will discuss the role of protected areas, technology transfer, and the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Crucially, they will also decide if they will start controversial negotiations on legally binding rules on access to genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, and the `fair and equitable' distribution of the benefits of this cultural and biological diversity.

Friends of the Earth International, the world's largest grassroots environmental organisation, is concerned about those rules, since biopiracy [2] is on the increase worldwide.

"New rules which treat genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge as commodities are unacceptable as they risk facilitating biopiracy instead of halting it," said Simone Lovera of Friends of the Earth International.

"Patents on life threaten the main objective of this biodiversity convention: preserving our planet's biodiversity," added Isaac Rojas of Friends of the Earth Costa Rica.

There are many activities that are directly responsible for the loss of biological and cultural diversity. The logging (which caused the disappearance of a great part of the world's forests) and mining industries are two major culprits.

Friends of the Earth International is calling on the conference:

• to ban large-scale commercial logging in tropical forests (for example in Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia)
• to ban mining, at least in the world's protected areas
• to ensure explicit safeguards for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the proposed workplan on protected areas.
• to not hold negotiations on biopiracy rules (regime) that allow patents on life and the treatment of biodiversity and associated traditional knowledge as a commodity.

Notes

[1] Official website of the CBD: www.biodiv.org

[2] Biopiracy is the appropriation and trading of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge.

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