Discover Top Posts Tagged with #biopiracy

Farmers in the coastal county of Kilifi reportedly sold eight trees to a company based in Georgia.

human beings are unbelievable. why buying trees? why selling trees?

(source: bbc news | 22 nov 2022)

Kenya has cancelled a licence issued to a foreign company to uproot and export baobab trees from the coastal region amid public outcry.

The Georgian company bought eight of the giant trees from local farmers.

Environmental experts have described the planned export of the trees as "biopiracy".

Authorisation for uprooting the baobabs, which can live up to 2,500 years, was not properly obtained, the environment minister said.

Some farmers in Kilifi county reportedly wanted to clear their land to plant maize.

They sold the trees growing in their private land for between $800 (£670) and $2,400, the UK's Guardian newspaper reported.

#baobab trees #kenya's biodiversity #commercial farming #deforestation #biopiracy

Medicines and cosmetics use substances derived from nature. But Bioprospecting can turn into biopiracy. More and more companies are patenting natural ingredients making billions. It can come at a cost to the environment and traditional communities living in biodiversity-rich regions.

#dw planet a #solarpunk #colonialism #nature #plants #Bioprospecting #biopiracy #companies #environment #indigenous people #Traditional Knowledge #capitalism #daniel robinson #Youtube

Biopiracy

The dictionary defines biopiracy as the commercial exploitation of biological & genetic material (like medicinal plant extracts) without giving back to the indigenous people or places they took them from. Sound familiar? I’ll give you a hint–colonization. Though the colonial era (think “thirteen original colonies”) seems long ago, biopiracy practices echo the unfair theft of resources that colonizing countries performed on their colonies.

Biopiracy is capitalist exploitation that allows large pharmaceutical companies to officially patent naturally-occurring organisms and public scientific knowledge. Patents are exclusive and create legal restrictions on indigenous uses. An example of this is endangered white sage. White sage that was stolen from Native territory is sold at Sephora cosmetics but was illegal for colonized Natives until the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978.

This can cause the extinction of endemic organisms or bankrupt natural reserves of the species, but those privileged enough to pay for it have excess of the patented product. Once species begin to go extinct, the responsibility is often placed on indigenous groups to either rehabilitate the species' previous wild numbers, or be forced to watch their cultural practices die.

Biopiracy is another form of colonialism: formerly colonized countries are still exploited for their biological and cultural resources. This increases power inequalities between wealthy colonizing countries and their ex-colonies.

#colonization #colonialism #colonizer #biopiracy #indigenous #indeigenous practices #ceremony #ndn #ayuhuasca #san pedro #cannabis #patent #american indian religious freedom act 1978 #indigeneity #glossary

“Diversity as a worldview allows diverse components to be perceived, irrespective of their size. The recognition of the diverse roles and interdependence of each part puts limits on our exploitation of other species, and limits human arrogance.”

-Vandana Shiva, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature

#vandana shiva #biopiracy #quote #lit #diversity #nature #environmentalism #conservation

A controversial patent on Ethiopia's national cereal teff is about to be terminated — thanks, in part, to the initiative of a German lawyer. But the problem of biopiracy is far from solved.

#ethiopia #ethiopian food #teff #cereal #patent #patents #biopiracy #food

A nitrogen-fixing maize grown in an indigenous region of Mexico has the ability to fertilize itself, recent research shows. Now, as a global company and U.S. scientists work to replicate this trait in other corn varieties, will the villages where the maize originated share fairly in the profits?

The situation surrounding Totontepec’s maize raises complex questions about how indigenous communities equitably benefit when research scientists and multinational corporations commercialize local crops and plants. Should Totontepec’s maize turn out to be a miracle, self-fertilizing crop whose genetic traits can be replicated worldwide, will the community’s Mixe people receive a significant long-term share of profits, which could potentially number in the millions of dollars? How does Nagoya ensure that the rights and interests of small indigenous communities are safeguarded when their leaders negotiate complex deals with international lawyers and executives? And, not least, when a valuable plant is found throughout a region, is it fair for a single village such as Totontepec to reap financial benefits from its maize while neighboring communities with identical or similar maize receive nothing?

#mexico #science #biology #agriculture #biopiracy

Ayahuasca may be incredibly healing—but most people can't afford it.

The prohibitive cost of ayahuasca ceremonies is a result of biopiracy, the commercial exploitation of or monopolization over biological material like medicinal plant extracts without compensating the indigenous peoples or countries from which the material or relevant knowledge is obtained. This capitalist exploitation often takes the form of patenting the organisms or knowledge in a way that restricts use and takes away access by indigenous practitioners.

Doing this can deplete natural reserves of the species, cause the extinction of endemic living organisms, privatizes cultural practices, and restricts access to cultural identities and practices while giving access to those privileged enough to pay for it. This is essentially another form of colonialism--formerly colonized countries continue to be exploited for their cultural resources, which exacerbates power inequalities between wealthy colonizing countries and industrializing ex-colonies.

#biopiracy #harm reduction #ayahuasca #parents never told us #parents never told m #parents never told me #shit our parents never told us #colonization #bioprospecting #hallucinogenics #doubleblind #doubleblindmag #sex education #comprehensive sex education #queer sex education #queer harm reduction

The modern drugs commercially available nowadays are widely isolated from natural reservoirs. Penicillin was isolated from a mold and Aspirin was isolated from a willow tree. The recent advanced scientific research has further extended the explorations for medicinal drugs in the marine reservoirs. Some of the drugs based on marine organisms have proved to be quite effective in treating diseases like cancer and Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The different marine organisms like sponges, molluscs, echinoderms, tunicates and bryozoans are being actively used or trialled for the preparation of useful pharmaceutical drugs. The scientists, researchers and pharmaceutical corporations of the world compete to discover new drugs from global marine reservoirs. The marine organisms are freely available in the marine ecosystems and lack of global legislations provide free hands to the biopirates to exploit the marine reservoirs and isolate different organisms from it. The enormous explorations in the marine reservoirs by the biopirates are causing damage to its ecosystems and its lifeforms. In this investigation, it was concluded that though scientific explorations should be allowed in the marine reservoirs for producing lifesaving drugs but overexploitation of marine reservoirs should be prohibited. It is suggested through this investigation that proper tracking of marine reservoirs is the present requirement to face the challenges being laid down by the biopirates.

#Biopiracy #Oceans #Marine organisms #Pharmaceutical drugs #Medicines

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