Bio-Piracy in Chiapas
by Bill Weinberg
"BIO-PIRACY IN CHIAPAS",
by Bill Weinberg
[From: Chiapaslink [email protected], August 20, 2001]
This past March, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) made
history with a march on Mexico City from its jungle stronghold in the poor
southern state of Chiapas, demanding acceptance of its peace plan, the
San Andres Accords [see Al Giordano, "Zapatistas on the March," April 9,
Chiapaslink]. But within six weeks, the accords -- constitutional
amendments recognizing the autonomy of Mexico's indigenous peoples --
were gutted by federal legislators, causing the rebels once again to
break off dialogue.
At the heart of the debate over the plan is the question of who will
control the fate of the Chiapas rainforest, the Selva Lacandona -- where
real indigenous autonomy has been in place ever since the 1994 Zapatista
uprising.
The UN-recognized "Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve" holds the Selva's
last, threatened heart of virgin forest. Despite President Vicente Fox's
pledges to withdraw troops from Zapatista territory, many military
positions remain in the Selva. The troops are ostensibly policing Montes
Azules against drug traffickers and protecting it from deforestation.
But the Selva's Maya inhabitants, the Zapatista base communities, say
that -- in defiance of both UN guidelines and the San Andres Accords --
Montes Azules is not being protected for the resident indigenous
peoples, but for transnational biotech corporations that hope to profit
from the region's genetic wealth.
In 1998, the California firm "Diversa" signed a three-year
"bio-prospecting" deal with the Mexican government. Diversa, which has a
similar deal with the US government for Yellowstone National Park, is
granted access to Mexico's biodiversity in exchange for $5,000 to train
and equip personnel from the National Autonomous University of Mexico,
who are to collect the samples; $50 per sample; and royalties of between 0.3 and 0.5 percent of net sales onproducts derived from them.
The University of Georgia, the Britain-based company Molecular Nature
Ltd. and El Colegio de la Frontera Sur have launched a similar five-year
project. This one, titled Drug Discovery and Biodiversity Among the Maya
of Mexico, specifically targets Chiapas. Tapping the vast reservoir of
Maya herblore, the program will receive $2.5 million from the
International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG), a consortium of US
government agencies, including the National Science Foundation and the
Department of Agriculture.
The Chiapas Council of Traditional Indigenous Midwives and Healers
(COMPITCH) is urging Indians not to cooperate with the researchers,
charging that "the pact was developed without notifying or informing
indigenous communities and organizations."
The US program has developed its own partnership with local Indian
communities, called ICBG-Maya. Director Brent Berlin of the University
of Georgia told the Associated Press that the project has received the
consent of nearly fifty communities and forged profit-sharing deals with
them. But Berlin said he warned them that financial windfalls were a
long shot.
Since 1993 the ICBG has awarded eleven bio-prospecting grants totaling
$18.5 million worldwide. Commercial partners include GlaxoSmithKline,
Dow Agroscience, American Cyanamid (recently acquired by BASF) and,
until recently, Monsanto Searle. The revenues at stake contrast sharply
with the agonizing poverty of Chiapas villages. ... Rather than bring
wealth to impoverished villages, new patents may impose economic burdens
by requiring farmers to pay royalties to foreign corporations to grow
their own indigenous maize. The Mexican government has expressed concern
over DuPont's recent patenting of all corn varieties with certain oleic
acid levels, including many originating in Mexico.
Beth Burrows of the Seattle-area-based Edmonds Institute, one of the
litigants in the Yellowstone case, is still waiting for a court-ordered
impact study on the bio-prospecting program there. Says Burrows: "To
privatize living organisms, whether it is Mexican maize or Yellowstone
microbes, may serve corporate interests, but it does not serve our
social contract or our duties to steward the land and support farmers.
Farmers all over the world save seeds and trade them with neighbors. But
Monsanto has taken farmers to court for violating their property rights.
Farmers have to go to the corporations like to masters on the manor."
This system is now supported by the "trade-related intellectual property
rights" provisions -- or TRIPs -- of NAFTA and the WTO, instating
international recognition of patents on life. In contrast, the United
States still resists ratifying the Biodiversity Treaty, unveiled at the
1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, which would recognize indigenous
peoples' intellectual property rights. Adds Burrows: "We're creating a
social disruption which I'm not sure people are seeing."
Some people are seeing it. In April representatives from more than 100
Chiapas Indian communities held a Maize Meeting in the highlands city of
San Cristobal de Las Casas, vowing not to plant bio-tweaked corn. In
mid-June COMPITCH held an international anti-bio-piracy Forum for
Biological and Cultural Diversity, in San Cristobal. And on June 24,
when the Biotechnology Industry Organization met in San Diego, Diversa's
hometown, activists held their own "BioJustice" counterconvention.
The San Andres Accords would create a formidable obstacle to corporate
designs on Mexico's Indian lands: uncooperative Indian communities with
greater control over their turf. Which is why peace is likely to remain
illusory in southern Mexico as long as the government remains beholden
to corporate globalization. But the issues raised by the Zapatista
autonomy demands have implications for indigenous peoples, farmers and
environmentalists worldwide.
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