News and Notes

News and Notes

SPECIALNEWS AND FEATURES NOTES 15 India moves to protect traditional medicines from foreign patents “Non-Wood Forest Products (NWFPs) In the first step by a developing country to consist of goods of biological origin stop multinational companies from patenting other than wood, derived from forests, traditional remedies from local plants and other wooded land and trees outside animals, the Indian Government has forests.” effectively licensed 200 000 local treatments «Les produits forestiers non ligneux as "public property", free for anyone to use sont des biens d’origine biologique but no one to sell as a "brand". autres que le bois, dérivés des forêts, The move comes after scientists in Delhi des autres terres boisées, et des arbres noticed an alarming trend – the hors forêts.» making its own gum using only chicle gum "bioprospecting" of natural remedies by «Productos forestales no madereros base and natural flavourings and companies abroad. After trawling through son los bienes de origen biológico sweeteners. (Source: CNN [United the records of the global trademark offices, distintos de la madera derivados de los Kingdom], 3 April 2009.) officials found 5 000 patents had been bosques, de otras tierras boscosas y de issued – at a cost of at least US$150 million – los árboles fuera de los bosques.» for "medical plants and traditional (FAO’s working definition) BIOPROSPECTING/ systems". %BENEFIT-SHARING "More than 2 000 of these belong to the OR BIOPIRACY? Indian systems of medicine … We began to ask why multinational companies were Bioprospecting: “The Green Gold Rush” spending millions of dollars to patent %BIODEGRADABLE The Green Gold Rush is the name of a video treatments that so many lobbies in Europe CHEWING GUM documentary about bioprospecting and deny work at all," said Dr Vinod Kumar indigenous peoples that was produced in Gupta, who heads the Traditional United Kingdom authorities and October–November 2008 in Geneva, Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), which environmental groups were welcoming the Switzerland. This project is the result of lists in encyclopaedic detail the 200 000 launch this week of the world's first collaboration between the Swiss NGO treatments. The database, which took 200 biodegradable chewing gum, which they Group of Volunteers Overseas (GVOM) and researchers eight years to compile by say could help save some of the millions the Vice-presidency of the Plurinational meticulously translating ancient Indian spent on clearing up the mess that State of Bolivia. texts, will now be used by the European ordinary gum creates. The objective of the project is to Patent Office to check against The new gum becomes non-adhesive stimulate the debate about the protection bioprospectors. (TKDL can be found at: when dry and decomposes to dust within and valorization of traditional knowledge www.tkdl.res.in/tkdl/langdefault/common/ six weeks, a spokesman for Mexico's and biological resources in the home.asp?GL=Eng) Chicza Mayan Rainforest Chewing Gum told Plurinational State of Bolivia. It is Gupta points out that in Brussels alone CNN. Unlike other gums that contain articulated in two phases. During the first there had been 285 patents for medicinal petrochemicals, the natural gum is two months in Geneva, a video plants whose uses had long been known in produced from the sap of the chicozapote documentary was produced and the three principal Indian systems: tree (Manilkara zapota) found in the information about international Ayurveda, India's traditional medical Mexican rain forest. experiences and strategies was collected. treatment; Unani, a system believed to A spokesman for campaign group Keep During the next six months in La Paz, have come to India via ancient Greece; and Britain Tidy told CNN they welcome any Plurinational State of Bolivia Siddha, one of India's oldest health product that can help eradicate the staining (January–June 2009), various public therapies, from the south. on pavements caused by dropped chewing presentations of the video documentary In the past, India has had to go to court gum. According to the Local Government and debates, weekly meeting of experts, to get patents revoked. Officials say that to Association, removing chewing gum litter seven workshops with more than 700 lift patents from medicines created from costs local authorities £150 million a year. delegates of indigenous peoples and a turmeric and neem, an Indian tree, it spent The producer of the new gum is national encounter of 50 delegates of more than US$5 million. In the case of the Consorcio Chiclero, which comprises 46 indigenous peoples, were being organized. neem patent, the legal battle took almost cooperatives with around 2 000 chicleros The national encounter was to take place ten years. "We won because we proved farmers, working in an area of 1.3 million in La Paz over three days during the first these were part of traditional Indian ha of rain forest. Locals have been week of June 2009 in coordination with a knowledge. There was no innovation and extracting the natural chicle gum base regional encounter of 180 indigenous therefore no patent should be granted," from the bark of the chicozapote trees for a peoples' delegates on “intellectual property said Gupta. century, a spokesman for Chicza told CNN. and traditional knowledge”, organized by India's battle to protect its traditional After years of exporting the gum base to COINCABOL. It is also expected that various treatments is rooted in the belief that the be used as an ingredient in the international experts, intellectuals and developing world's rich biodiversity is a manufacture of regular chewing gum, the activists will be able to participate. (Source: potential treasure trove of starting material cooperative recently decided to start TheGreenGoldRush.org) for new drugs and crops. Gupta said that it NON-WOOD NEWS No. 19 July 2009 16 SPECIALNEWS AND FEATURES NOTES costs the West US$15 billion and 15 years Order 010-2007-CR/GRC.CUSCO” that took be applied to these [Western Ghats] plants to produce a "blockbuster drug". A patent place from 21 to 23 April 2009 in Cuzco, as well, with minor modifications," says Uma lasts for 20 years, so a pharmaceutical Peru. This session analysed the impacts Shaanker, a researcher at the University of company has just five years to recover its and challenges of biopiracy in Peru, and its Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore, and one costs – which makes conventional relevance to the recently promulgated of the authors of the paper. The process is treatments expensive. Order 048-2008-CR/GRC.CUSCO. relatively simple as shikimic acid is highly "If you can take a natural remedy and This regional legal benchmark seeks to water soluble, he says. isolate the active ingredient then you just regulate the activities of access to genetic Besides isolation, commercialization need drug trials and the marketing. resources and associated traditional would require bulk extraction on a large Traditional medicine could herald a new knowledge, practices and innovations within scale and validation of the shikimic acid age of cheap drugs." (Source: the traditional territories of indigenous and content. guardian.co.uk, 22 February 2009.) native communities of the Cuzco region, as Shaanker's laboratory now plans to well as aspects related to the protection and demonstrate the feasibility of bulk Rural communities in Kenya to benefit promotion of the biocultural heritage of extraction – in tens of kilograms compared from plan to market natural plants indigenous communities in Peru. with milligrams in the laboratory – in the Rural communities are set to benefit from The workshop sought to advance the two species, Araucaria excelsa and research firms and the University of design and implementation of tools, such as Calophyllum apetalum, with the highest Nairobi’s plan to market natural plants. local biocultural registers, customary law- shikimic acid content. (Source: SciDev.Net The move is aimed at boosting the living based protocols and intercommunity Weekly Update [31 March to 5 April 2009].) standards of rural communities and agreements that will protect and defend the preserving the environment. region’s biocultural heritage and promote The initiative involves looking for special tools that foment creative economies based %“CORK REHARVEST” genes or plants that can be used to on solidarity, as well as protect the manufacture medicine, industrial products traditional institutions and customary laws The Willamette Valley Vineyards in Oregon, and food supplements for commercial within the respective Andean-Amazonian United States of America – the world’s first purposes. communities. (Source: www.andes.org.pe/ winery to earn Forest Stewardship Kenya has not tapped into this market, php=left_en05.php) Council/Rainforest Alliance certification for which now stands at about US$600 billion (Please also see page 20 for more using cork stoppers harvested from globally, despite its richness in biodiversity. information on the NGO ANDES.) responsibly managed forestlands – has International researchers and launched a new cork recycling programme: multinational drug manufacturing “Cork ReHarvest”. companies are now looking for ways to BIRD FLU ANTIVIRUS A first for Oregon and a model for exploit the country’s biodiversity, bearing in %SOURCED FROM INDIAN wineries around the globe, the programme mind its potential to contribute to the TREES has two aims: to collect and recycle used discovery of medicine extracts. However, corks; and to educate the public about the the strain used to manufacture a drug A team of scientists in Bangalore (India) importance of sustaining the cork forests of known as Acarbose used for treating reported in Current Science last week the Mediterranean. (Source: Rainforest diabetes came from Ruiru, although the (25 March) that they have identified several Matters, March 2009.) community around there has not benefited tree species that contain shikimic acid, a much from its discovery. crucial component in the production of Bioprospecting is not common in Kenya Tamiflu, the only drug used against bird flu %EDUCATIONAL TOOL because of lack of research and product caused by the H5N1 virus.

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