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.