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BRAZILIAN SHAMANS TO DISCUSS BIOPIRACY, PROTECTION OF PRACTICES
Rio de Janeiro, Nov 23, 2001 (EFE via COMTEX) -- Medicine men and shamanistic healers from the Brazilian Amazon plan to meet in December, in the northern town of Sao Luis, to discuss how to protect their ancestral wisdom from biopiracy, according to spokespersons.
The meeting is being organized by the National Institute of Patent Rights (INPI).
"We want something similar to what Venezuela did, where they have a data bank with 9,000 traditional practices," the president of INPI, Jose Graza Aranha, told EFE.
"The idea is to better distribute the benefits," Graza Aranha explained. "The data bank will let anyone who is interested, have access to the information, following the payment of royalties which will go to the indigenous communities."
The meeting of medicine men or "pajes," as they are known in Brazil, will take place Dec. 4-6 in Sao Luis, some 2,725 kilometers (1,693 miles) north of Rio de Janeiro.
According to authorities, there are 200,000 native species known in Brazil which accounts for 23 percent of the biodiversity on the planet.
The government estimates that 97 percent of the 4,000 patents taken out on natural products in Brazil between 1995 and 2000, were requested by foreigners.
Professor Dharani Sundaram from Mato Grosso Federal University says biopiracy has gone to the extreme of patenting mother's milk in the production of yogurt.
"The multinationals are plundering everything since Brazil has very weak laws" and "very often pirates operate hidden behind scientific cooperation projects and eco-tourism."
Genetic material samples are illegally taken out of Brazil in just about every way, some have been discovered hidden in the soles of shoes, Sundaram said.
"In a laboratory in New Jersey, DNA from Brazilian Indians can be purchased for $500," said Sundaram.
The medicine men and shamanistic doctors gathering in Sao Luis will explain their position on the matter and draft a letter that will be taken by INPI to a meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property in Geneva, Switzerland.
The world market for patents of natural products grosses some $780 billion annually and has no established regulations.
According to Graza Aranha, fighting piracy is "a priority for the Brazilian government," which in March inaugurated a center for biotechnology in Manaos, in the very heart of the Amazon.
Copyright (c) 2001 Agencia EFE S.A.
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GOING FURTHER (compiled by GRAIN)
Agência Brasil, "INPI dará apoio para pesquisas
de indígenas", O Globo, 3 de dezembro de 2001.
http://tb.bol.com.br/simpleRedirect.html?srv=cn&trg=http://
oglobo.globo.com/plantao/1796181.htm