costa rica: biopiracy and the case of
INBio
In October 1989, The National Institute
for Biodiversity (INBio) was created as a
private, non-profit association working in
the public interest. Its goal was to make
an inventory of national biodiversity
within one single entity and to put this
information to the service of the
country.
In 1991, as part of a one million dollar
deal, INBio began selling biological
samples to the pharmaceutical giant Merck.
The terms of the contract were kept secret
despite the fact that INBio was negotiating
public goods. Moreover, the contract didn’t
mention important issues for the country,
such as the number of contracted samples,
percentage of eventual royalties, ownership
of the patents, impacts of patenting on
local communities and possible erosion of
sovereignty.
The relationship between INBio and the
corporate sector continued in a contract
with Diversa Corporation in 1995, which was
renewed in 1998. Highlighted in a CBD press
release as an example of access and benefit
sharing of genetic resources, the two
partners collected samples of
microorganisms from mangrove swamps, coral
reefs, forest soils and other locations.
Diversa was looking for enzymes and
structural proteins that could be used for
biotechnology, crop protection and
pharmaceuticals. Under the terms of the
agreements, all DNA sequences that INBio
isolated for Diversa became Diversa’s
property. In return Diversa paid the salary
of at least one member of INBio staff and
allowed it to use its proprietary
technology to collect samples. Furthermore,
INBio would receive royalties in the event
that Diversa licensed a product to a client
company, based on samples obtained from
INBio.
It must be questioned if this was a fair
deal. The CBD said nothing regarding
whether there would be any control
mechanisms to determine the existence or
not of products that are derived from the
appropriated biodiversity samples. Nor did
it question what the privatization of
biodiversity might mean for poor countries
in terms of their culture, their vision of
the world, or at least in terms of their
research capacity.
Since 1999, INBio has received financial
support from the Inter American Development
Bank to initiate training courses for
companies to research and sell
pharmaceuticals made out of herbs, tree
bark and other natural plant material. The
end result has been the development of
companies that sell capsules for the
domestic market to treat benign conditions
such as stomach pain and acne. The capsules
basically contain what traditional healers
have offered their patients for thousands
of years. With funds from an international
financial institution, INBio uses native
plants and traditional knowledge to promote
their appropriation in the hands of a
variety of companies.
These successful examples of biopiracy
are full of unfulfilled promises and
promote a development model that is very
detached from social needs and the
protection of the environment. INBio is a
private institution that facilitates the
privatization of Costa Rican biodiversity,
and is publicized as a successful business
model in the field of contracting the sale
of biodiversity to corporations at a
national and international level. It has
portrayed its own profits as a benefit to
the country, even though the monetary
contribution has not been as lucrative as
expected according to what was established
when they signed the agreement with Merck.
In short, they sold priceless Costa Rican
biodiversity on the cheap.
