the privatization of traditional
knowledge, seeds and medicines
simone lovera, friends of the earth
international
Cultural and biological diversity are
intrinsically linked. Many cultural
expressions and traditions have their
origin in people's natural surroundings,
while different peoples have also created a
wide diversity of landscapes and
agricultural crops.
Furthermore, traditional knowledge about
ecosystem management and plant breeding
plays a very important role in biodiversity
conservation and sustainable use. Over the
past centuries, women and men created a
rich variety of food and other agricultural
crops through sharing seeds and knowlege.
At one time there were over 7,000 varieties
of rice in Indonesia alone. Indigenous
peoples and traditional communities also
tend to have extensive knowledge about the
medicinal plants in their surroundings. For
many of the world's most impoverished
people, these plants are the only medicine
they can afford: it is estimated that 80%
of all Africans depend almost completely on
traditional medicinal plants for their
health care, for example.
traditions being tripped up
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However, these traditions are
currently threatened by the WTO's
Trade Related Intellectual Property
Rights agreement (TRIPS), similar
intellectual property rights (IPR)
clauses in regional and bilateral
trade agreements, and so-called
systems designed to ensure access to
and equitable sharing of genetic
resources. Through these various
agreements, industrialized countries,
led by the United States, are trying
to impose a very rigid system of IPRs
upon developing countries. This
forces developing countries to accept
and respect patents and other IPRs
granted by northern patent offices,
which have little interest in either
the development needs or the rights
of indigenous peoples, farming
communities and people in developing
countries. Developing countries are
also being forced to expand their own
IPR sys
The results are devastating.
Patents and other forms of
intellectual property rights are
totally inadequate for these
traditional forms of innovation.
Northern countries tend to have
little respect for the fact that
traditional knowledge was, is, and
continues to be shared by communities
and generations, so it can never be
claimed as property. In a classically
neo-colonial style, they have allowed
their industries to apply for patents
on seeds and traditional medicines
that were “discovered” by industries
in the North after having been
developed by communities in the
South. Trade agreements are used to
ensure that these intellectual
property restrictions also apply in
southern countries.
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This leads to situations in which the
farmers and traditional healers that
originally developed seeds and traditional
medicines can be prevented from using them
for free, as this would “infringe” upon the
patents of companies like Monsanto, Bayer
and Merck. Women are no longer able to use
the agricultural varieties they have
developed, and indigenous peoples cannot
use the traditional medicines they have
used for centuries. Add to that the
devastating impacts of patents on the
prices and accessibility of regular
medicines like AIDS blockers and
vaccinations, and it becomes clear that
TRIPs is one of the greatest threats to
human health and food sovereignty and
security the world is currently facing.
For years, developing countries have
pointed out these gross injustices. Some
developing countries are now demanding, as
a minimum, that TRIPs be reviewed and that
patent offices be obliged to disclose the
origin of the plant varieties and medicinal
plants that pharmaceutical companies and
seed giants try to patent. This would make
it easier for developing countries to track
whether these varieties are traditionally
used or were invented by their farmers and
healers, and thus demand payment from the
companies wanting to patent them.
Other developing countries, particularly
in Africa, have gone further and demanded
an end to patents on life forms, though not
on all forms of IPRs. They point out that
abolishing patents on life is a
precondition for combating the practice of
so-called “biopiracy”, the expropriation
and exploitation of the rich African
heritage of traditional seeds and medicines
by northern corporations and
northern-driven trade agreements.
Friends of the Earth International is
calling for governments to amend all
relevant international agreements so that
countries cannot be forced into introducing
intellectual property rights on life forms.
Governments also need to fully protect
farmers', indigenous peoples' and local
communities' rights to their traditional
resources and knowledge, in particular
allowing farmers to conserve, exchange and
reproduce seeds. Public access to medicines
and governments' rights to regulate to
protect people and the environment must be
guaranteed as well.
