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Biopolicy International
African Centre for Technology Studies

Num. 7, 1992, pp. 1-55


        PROPERTY RIGHTS, BIOTECHNOLOGY AND GENETIC RESOURCES

Code: BP93007
Size of Files:
        Text: 171K
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                        Mohamed Khalil, Walter Reid
                             and Calestous Juma


Acts Press
African Centre for Technology Studies
Nairobi, Kenya


1992
African Centre for Technology Studies
and World Resources Institute, 1992

Published by
Acts Press, African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS)
P.O. Box 45917, Nairobi, Kenya
Crescent Road, Off Parklands Road, Opp. M.P. Shah Hospital,
Parklands
Tel: (254-2) 744047, 744095; Fax

This publication has been released with financial assistance
from the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA). The
events that resulted in this publication were supported by SIDA
and the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA),
Canadian International Development Research Centre (IUCN),
International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources (IUCN), Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Swedish
UNDP for Nature Conservation (SSNC), United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP),
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and
World Resources Institute (WRI). Further support in form of
documentation and technical support was provided by Directorate-
General International Cooperation (DGIS) of the Dutch Foreign
Ministry and Initiatives Publishers respectively.


Printed by English Press Limited, P.O. Box 30127, Nairobi




Cataloguing in Publication Data

Property rights, biotechnology and genetic resources / Mohamed
Khalil, Walter Reid and Calestous Juma.  Nairobi, Kenya :
Acts Press, African Centre for Technology Studies, 1992.

(African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS)
Biopolicy International Series; no. 07)

Bibliography: p.
Includes index.

 

ISBN 9966-41-xx-xx



                               Contents


Introduction                                            1

1.   Background                                         1

2.   The biodiversity conservation strategy programme   2

3.   The environmental setting                          3

4.   Property rights and genetic resources              5

5.   Ownership regimes and intellectual property rights 12

6.   Common heritage or common concern?                 17

7.   Towards a biodiveristy strategy                    19

8.   Follow-up                                          24

9.   Recommendations and follow-up                      50

Notes                                                   53

Participants                                            54


Introduction

The African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) and the World
Resources Institute (WRI), in conjunction with the ACTS
Biopolicy Institute (Maastricht, The Netherlands) organized an
African regional consultation on the Biodiversity Conservation
Strategy Programme of WRI, the World Conservation Union (IUCN)
and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Over the
same period (June 10-15, 1991), an expert workshop on "Property
Rights, Biotechnology and Genetic Resources" was held. The
events were held in Nairobi and attended by international
experts and African conservationists. This issue of the
Biopolicy International represents a synthesis of the papers
presented at the events and the discussions.

      The events were expected to provide inputs into the
Strategy, the proposed International Convention on Biological
Diversity, the 4th Protected Areas Conference in Venezuela in
1992 and the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED) to be held in 1992 in Brazil. In addition,
the events were expected to provide a broader basis for raising
the concern over biological diversity conservation in Africa.

      The events were supported by the Danish International De-
velopment Agency (DANIDA), Canadian International Development
Research Centre (IDRC), International Union for the Conservation
of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), Stockholm Environment
Institute (SEI), Swedish International Development Authority
(SIDA), Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC), United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP), United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD) and World Resources Institute (WRI).
Further support in form of documentation was provided by
Directorate-General International Cooperation (DGIS) of the
Dutch Foreign Ministry and Initiatives Publishers.



     
     1. Background

The world is being impoverished by the loss and degradation of
its most fundamental living resources‘its genes, species,
habitats, and ecosystems. Some scientists predict that if
present trends continue, up to 25% of the world‘s species will
be lost in the next several decades, accompanied by an equally
alarming degradation of habitats and ecosystems. This loss of
the planet's living  richness is both wrong and dangerous.
Wrong, because we should accept that all species have a right to
exist, as the UN General Assembly stated when it adopted the
World Charter for Nature in 1982. Dangerous, because the world's
ecology is humanity's life-support system, and we do not know
which components are key to maintaining their essential
functions.

      The loss of biodiversity undermines prospects for
sustainable development. The world's renewable resources, such
as forests, fisheries, wildlife, and crops, are of immediate use
to people, while the genetic diversity of these resources allows
continued adaptation to the world's changing conditions. What is
more, the highly diverse natural ecosystems that support this
wealth of species also maintain hydrological cycles, regulate
climate, build soils, absorb and break down pollutants, and
provide sites for spiritual enrichment, tourism, and research.
To waste Earth's riches, is to rob the world's rural poor of
sustainable livelihoods, and deprive future generations of the
resources they will need to survive and prosper.

      Traditional conservation activities are too disparate,
fragmented, and limited to bring about the crucial changes
needed to reduce the loss of diversity. The best way to slow the
loss of biodiversity is through a diverse, coordinated, and
participatory programme that attacks the problem at its roots,
builds support among wide-ranging institutions and individuals,
draws on the best modern science, and establishes biodiversity
conservation in its rightful place as a basic prerequisite of
development policy.



     2. The biodiversity conservation strategy programme

The World Resources Institute (WRI), the International Union for
Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), and the
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in conjunction with
the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) have organized a collaborative
Biodiversity Conservation Strategy Programme. The Programme's
goal is to help humanity to use biological resources in a
sustainable and equitable manner that does not critically reduce
the biosphere's overall diversity. The immediate, practical goal
is to take steps to keep losses of biological diversity to a
minimum and to manage our living resource base wisely. Between
1990 and 1992, work will focus on:

a)    Developing a Biodiversity Conservation Strategy that
defines
   the options and opportunities for actions that achieve global
   goals while addressing local priorities;

b)    Developing and promoting a Decade Action Plan for an
   intensive and sustained world-wide effort by concerned
   institutions and individuals working locally, nationally, 
   and internationally to defend, understand, and use
   biodiversity wisely;

c)    Developing a Biodiversity Status Report, that makes
   information on the state of biodiversity throughout the world
   available to scientists, NGOs, policy-makers, and donors in
   a form they can use;

d)    Analyzing the root causes of biodiversity loss and
   encouraging the development or reform of policies, laws,
   institutions, and administrative procedures to foster the
   understanding and maintenance of biological diversity;

e)    Identifying and promoting the skills, management methods,
   and investments needed to provide local communities with more
   sustainable benefits from biological resources;

f)    Developing methods for cooperating internationally in the
   conservation of biodiversity and promoting greater financial
   support for high-priority activities;

g)    Establishing biodiversity conservation as a goal of
   development through the 1990s and beyond.


      The Strategy, Action Plan, and Status Report will be
drafted by WRI, IUCN, and UNEP, with substantial input obtained
through regional consultations and other forums, to serve the
policy-maker, natural resources manager, economic planner,
development and community leader. The strategy will provide
these institutions and individuals with a picture of where their
activities fit, how they complement other activities, and what
changes are needed to better meet the goal of defending,
understanding and using biodiversity in a sustainable and
equitable manner.
 
      The Decade Action Plan will have a more sharply focused
target than the Strategy. The actions recommended will not be a
shopping list of all needed changes, but rather a short list of
specific high-yield actions that will give the greatest leverage
for attaining the goals outlined in the Strategy. Consequently,
the Decade Action Plan should focus its recommendations on those
institutions that are most likely to set desired changes in
motion.

      An International Coordinating Group (ICG) has been set up
to assist in operational aspects of the programme. The ICG
includes members from Indonesia, Australia, Kenya, United
Kingdom, United States, Switzerland, Brazil, Costa Rica, and
India.

      Biodiversity will be conserved only if a critical mass of
governmental and non-governmental, development and conservation
institutions and individuals, can be mobilized to formulate
common objectives and coordinate plans of action. In order to
generate such a network, the process of developing the Strategy
calls on many institutions, aiming to provide a vehicle for
collaboration among them. Between January and September 1991, a
series of workshops fostered the development of such as network
and provided the vehicle for obtaining broad input into the
Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and Decade Action Plan.
Meetings were held on each continent to include "Regional
Consultations" and "Experts Workshops."

      Each regional consultation brought together a diverse cross
section of individuals from across the spectrum of governmental
and non-government agencies and organizations from the region
involved in the biodiversity issue. The participants were asked
to react to and help refine the draft World Biodiversity
Conservation Strategy and the Decade Action Plan.


     3. The environmental setting

Over the last few decades, and increasingly after the Stockholm
Conference on environment in 1972, global concerns have tended
to focus largely on conservation of living natural
resources - plants, animals and microorganisms, and the wider
abiotic environment within which complex ecological interactions
occur. The anxieties of the period stem from the fact that
ecosystems, species, and genetic diversities have been exposed
to harmful development patterns, such that nature's life-
supporting systems and mutually interlocking biotic arrangements
have been disrupted under the massive weight of ecological
stress.(1) The degradation of soils, destruction of tropical
forests, depletion of the ozone layer, pollution of water
regimes and disruptions of biological diversity are impacts that
entail enormous risks. In recent years, a growing body of
scientific evidence has pointed to the alarming and  ominous
prospects of current trends, indicating that the erosion of
genetic riches, loss of improved germplasm resources, and the
disappearance of vast stocks of biological diversity in general
will potentially manifest themselves in massive declines in crop
species, habitat alteration and species extinction. Human
survival and progress is therefore under considerable threat.(2)

      While these portentous developments have signaled the
economic and ecological transitions that the world is currently
going through, related international events have sought to
address the sustainable exploitation of genetic riches for
greater material benefits of mankind. At the heart of this
debate is the issue of intellectual property rights, and the
critical links between incentive regimes, conservation of
biological diversity and sustainable use. But just as important
is the question of diffusing environmentally-sound technologies
that have a direct bearing on utilization of germplasm
resources. But first, we need to cast these issues against the
background of existing international legal and economic
arrangements, and the debate over proprietary rights for living
matter and natural processes.

      The third paper by Chula Dahanayake, focussed largely on
questions of law and environmental protection: Dahanayake, C.
(1991) The Legal Framework for  Environmental Protection and
Conservation.(3)


     4. Property rights and genetic resources 

Over the past century many countries have established formal
legal regimes governing ownership and access to genetic
resources and, since their establishment, these regimes have
undergone a gradual evolution in response to changes in
technology and social needs. These formal regimes were built on
the foundation of traditional systems, which included attributes
of both common property control of genetic resources as exem-
plified by the free exchange of seeds between neighboring
farmers, and private ownership, such as the "trade secret"
protection that medicinal healers often maintain over the source
of their preparations. But, these precursors not withstanding,
throughout the period of colonial dominance and continuing well
into the 20th century, the world's genes were essentially open-
access resources. Despite attempts by many nations to prevent
the spread of key commercial crops such as rubber and Cinchona
(the source of quinine), genes moved largely unhindered among
people and nations.

      In 1873, a new chapter in the development of property
rights for genetic resources was opened when a patent was
granted to Louis Pasteur for a yeast culture. This "intellectual
property right" (IPR) gave Pasteur a limited monopoly over the
yeast and enforced by the state in recognition for his
intellectual contribution to the creation of the product. Since
then, IPR has been extended first to clonally reproduced plants
such as potatoes through "plant  patents," then to sexually
reproducing plants such as wheat through "plant breeders
rights," and finally to animals. Internationally, this evolution
in IPR protection led to the establishment of international
mechanisms for coordinating property right protection, such as
the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of
Plants (UPOV).

      But today, the framework of legal and policy regimes
governing genetic resources is in a state of flux: over the next
decade fundamental changes in genetic resource laws and policies
will take place. Four principal forces behind this upheaval
include the emerging new biotechnologies, threats to the
resource base, inequities in the existing legal regimes, and
technology transfer.


4.1 Emergence of new biotechnologies

The successful application of intellectual property rights to
agricultural genetic resources has always been hindered by the
self-reproducing nature of the product of innovation - the seed.
The purchaser of the seed possess not only the physical asset
containing the innovation but also the means of reproducing the
innovation at low cost. (Hybrid crops are an exception since
they don't reproduce true-to-type.) Many countries have at-
tempted to solve this problem through the creation of Plant
Breeders' Rights which grant a breeder the exclusive right to
sell a specific variety but do not preclude farmers from saving
the seed (or, in some countries, from selling the seed to
neighbours), and do not preclude other breeders from freely
working with the protected material in their breeding programs.

      The biotechnology industry has argued that this system is
ineffective in protecting innovation stemming from genetic
engineering. The industry argues that the cost of introducing a
new gene into a plant can not be recovered if another breeder is
allowed to use the engineered variety with no obligation to
return a royalty to the innovator. Thus, beginning with the
United States in 1985, a number of countries have granted strict
patent protection for genetically engineered plants and animals.
Even among industrialized countries, however, the scope of such
protection is far from uniform, with some countries (such as
members of the European Community) refusing to allow the
patenting of animals, some countries allowing only the patenting
of genes and not of an entire variety, and some allowing even
the patenting of unique characteristics of the variety.(4)


4.2 Threat to the resource base

Concurrent with the emergence of the biotechnology industry and
the resulting increased recognition of the value of genetic
resources, there has been a growing recognition of the threat
faced by those resources. Land-use changes, deforestation,
pollution, over-harvesting, and the introduction of exotic
species are thought to be sentencing as much as 5 percent of the
world's total species to extinction each decade. The genetic
diversity of domesticated plants and  animals is also in
jeopardy: modern crop and livestock varieties continue to
replace traditional varieties and the institutions responsible
for collecting and maintaining these threatened varieties have
been unable to keep pace with the rate of loss.

      IPR has traditionally been used as a tool to encourage
innovation.(5) But faced with this rapidly eroding resource base,
the possibility of using property rights regimes to provide an
incentive for conservation of the resource has also been raised.
If nations or local communities derived greater benefits from
the genetic resources that they harbor, it would be in their
economic interest to slow the rate of loss of the resource.
Thus, conservation groups have begun to argue that IPR regimes
must be modified to provide conservation incentives as well as
incentives for innovation.


4.3 Inequities in existing legal regimes

Existing intellectual property rights regimes protect only a
small portion of genetic resource innovations taking place in
the world. Historically, the contributions that private breeders
make to agricultural technologies has been viewed as patentable
"innovation," while the role of farmers in developing and
conserving the landraces on which breeders depend has not.
Similarly, the knowledge of medicinal plants held by a
traditional healer has not been deemed worthy of protection or
compensation, as opposed to the knowledge held by the company
that develops the plant into a western pharmaceutical.

      Although significant problems exist in establishing and
enforcing IPR protection for the broad range of actors involved
in the technological manipulation of genetic resources, there is
little doubt that differences in access to political and
economic power are at the root of the current narrow scope of
IPR protection. Farmers and traditional healers cannot
effectively claim ownership to a resource when they are unable
to control access to that resource, and they are not in a
financial position to challenge IPR claims made by others.
Prompted by this inequity, the concept of "farmers' rights"
emerged in international debates in the 1980s as a counterpoint
to breeders' rights. But the conceptual issue at stake extends
beyond the contributions of farmers and includes a wide range of
contributions to the advancement of genetic and resource
management technologies made by individuals and groups with
little access to the formal legal system. Moreover, the issue is
broader than traditional considerations of incentives and just
compensation: in the case of the knowledge of indigenous
peoples, fundamental questions of human rights are raised in
circumstances where knowledge, songs, dances, or traditional
artifacts are used without the consent of the people involved.(6)


4.4 Technology transfer

Although IPR regimes were developed as a tool for stimulating
innovation and diffusion of technologies within nations, their
potential role in promoting the transfer of technologies among 
countries has long been recognized. Now, with the emergence of
the new biotechnologies in industrialized countries, the design
of IPR systems that will facilitate technology acquisition by
less-developed nations has taken on a new urgency. Moreover, the
genetic resources possessed by less-developed nations serve both
as a useful bargaining chip to ensure favorable terms for
technology acquisition and as an incentive for acquiring
technologies enabling the exploitation of their own resources.

      Stimulated by these changes in technology, public
awareness, and social needs, significant changes in property
rights regimes governing genetic resources are now being debated
in five principal international fora:

a)    Negotiations now underway on a Biodiversity Convention are
   likely to play a significant role in redefining the
   international legal status of biodiversity and genetic
   resources‘the current draft articles recognize that
   biodiversity should be viewed as a sovereign national
   resource rather than the common heritage of humankind;

b)    International standards for patent systems governing
   genetic resources are being discussed in the negotiations on
   Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
   (TRIPS), part of the negotiations of the Uruguay Round of the
   General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT);

c)    The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is
   considering revisions in the Paris Convention on intellectual
   property rights related to the emergence of the new
   biotechnologies;

d)    The Union for Plant Variety Protection (UPOV) has recently
   revised its articles in light of these technological changes;
   v) And finally, the 1992 United Nations Conference on
   Environment and Development (UNCED), is likely to address
   genetic resource property rights issues in the context of
   biodiversity and technology transfer. Nationally, patent laws
   and plant breeders rights are also undergoing revision in many

   countries. Moreover, led by the United States, industrialized 
   countries are increasingly taking bilateral action to force 
   other countries to align property rights regimes with their 
   own.


      The changes underway in genetic resource legal regimes have
profound implications for development, conservation, and 
equity. Thus, they deserve considerable scrutiny and broad
participation of potentially affected constituencies. The
Nairobi Experts‘ Workshop on Property Rights, Biotechnology, and
Genetic Resources was convened to provide a fora for the
exploration of the issues involved in this period of transition,
to identify areas of consensus on actions needed at local,
national, and international levels, and to identify promising
avenues for policy reform in need of further study. 
      
      The evolution of intellectual property rights in most
developed countries have been marked by tensions largely because
the conditions for patent protection, namely, novelty,
industrial applicability, inventive step and reproduceability,
have been deemed to be inapplicable domains of animate
inventions involving plant and animal germplasms.(7) Since the
11th century, the idea of extending patent protection to
technological advances in the inanimate world was primarily
based on economic motives,(8) but the regime has experienced
revisions and immense changes since the International Convention
for the Protection of Industrial Property signed in Paris in
1883. The remunerative aspect of compensation for introducing an
invention provided the incentive structure necessary to spur
further inventive activity. There was the widespread view that
economic change and patent activity were positively correlated.
Consequently, technological innovations, seen as the mainspring
of economic growth, could be gauged from patent statistics. But
this conceptualization became difficult to sustain in the wake
of emerging data that established that low patenting activity
did not necessarily mirror technological backwardness.

      Over the years following the Paris Convention, it had
become apparent that the international legal and economic
structures had deprived plant breeders of equivalent protection
for animate activities that expended time, effort and resources
in crop improvement and production of plant varieties with
greater nutritional value, higher yields, less resistance to
diseases and pests, and adaptable to particular soils and
climatic conditions. It was argued that breeders were like
inventors, and that traditional and modern techniques of
creating new varieties were both labor- and resource-intensive
innovations for which remunerative compensation for plant
breeding efforts was in order. Indeed, legislation to recognize
property rights for breeders had been slow, though desperate
attempts at  national levels had been engineered in response to
pressures from active campaigns.

      A related factor hampering the efforts of breeders in
securing patent-like rights for their work was the demarcation
element that largely reflected industrial privileges and
entrenched interests. Some of these conditions have been cited
earlier, but of particular relevance to the issue under
consideration relates to the use of genetic materials endowed by
nature as starting points of breeders inventive activities.
Breeders observed that their deep knowledge of biological
organisms, coupled with the huge investments in research and
development, called for a skilled understanding of the plant and
animal genetic processes that permitted problem resolutions
beyond the ordinary experimentation with nature. And although
their starting materials were plucked from nature‘s biological
reserves, the products that resulted from the application of
developed processes had sufficient novelty in them to assume the
character of an innovation. After all, inanimate innovations
spurred by inventors which end up qualifying for patent
protection start off with raw materials possessing natural
physical and chemical properties. Since the main difference in
the forging of new products and processes entails the
application of human ingenuity, so in the same vein, inventors
from the animate domain can be said to have consumed a
considerable chunk of creative human energies.

      It must also be pointed out that the debate over patents
and patent-like protection was increasingly inflamed by the
structured categories of knowledge that have since viewed
industry and agriculture as separate and distinct entities. Part
of the reason that led to the erosion of non-patentability of
living matter under the industrial property rights has to do
with the merging of the other wise historically disparate fields
of human activity. Agro-industrial firms have increased in
sufficient numbers over the last few decades to diffuse the
otherwise sharp boundaries that have conceptually defined the
two arenas of activity.(9) The fact that agro-industrial concerns
have lately focussed on plant genetic engineering, acquired seed
firms and pioneered efforts in industrial processing using
biotechnological techniques is a forceful reminder of the weak
demarcations that the Cartesian orthodoxy has bequeathed to the
present generations.

      In view of these developments, pressures to recognize
breeder's rights emanated not only from public institutions and
farmers who traditionally were involved in agricultural
research, but also the new private companies that emerged from
the synthesis and diversification programs of purely industrial
firms. Private capital has found its way into the commercial
sectors of the future partly because of the promising prospects
that agro-industrial concerns predict.

      Centrifugal pressures to recognize plant breeders rights
began to bear fruit when the International Union for the
Protection of New Plant varieties (UPOV) was signed by many 
industrialized countries in 1961. It was clear that the
industrialized countries were to operate two systems governed by
separate conventions such that improved germplasm resources
granted patent-like protection had to necessarily comply with
provisions set out in the UPOV convention. In a sense, patents
and plant breeders rights (PBR) were based on distinct
legislations, which on the whole, were mutually exclusive. The
long years of consummation driven both by necessity, mounting
pressure and a constantly changing environment, led to the birth
pangs that ultimately produced the UPOV offspring in 1961.

      It ought to be noted that these modest beginnings created
the foundations for changes that were to grip the international
community at large in the 1970s and early 1980s. However, the
1961 Convention and the Plant Variety. Protection Act of 1970
(PVPA) revealed major gaps of Intellectual Property Right
regimes. For instance, the conditions for Plant Breeders Rights,
i.e. distinctiveness, homogeneity, stability, and
reproduceability, did not include a whole range of things that
began to focus the attention of those directly concerned. Two
issues are of particular importance here. Firstly, farmers were
allowed to retain seeds harvested from a plant variety to enable
them possess the raw material to be used for the next planting
season. Under this rule, patent infringement would occur if the
buyer sells the propagating material (i.e. seeds) of the
protected variety. Secondly, the use of a protected variety to
breed a new plant variety with characteristics acceptable under
PBR eligibility is an exercise that does not require
authorization from the breeder of the original variety. Both
these provisions are markedly different from the patent
conditions in the following way; (a) the continued use of a
patented product or process would necessitate payments of
royalties, licensing fees, etc., and (b) innovations resulting
from patented inventions would be subjected to grant-back
clauses that legally link user and original invention in a
binding commercial relationship.

      As science developed to exploit genetic variability,
questions were being asked as to whether plants, their
varieties, hybrids, genes, and processes used for introducing
new varieties and microorganisms found in nature, were
potentially patentable subject matter. Revisions are already
underway on many fronts aimed at limiting farmers and plant
breeders. Recently, UPOV introduced a provision that obliges
farmers to make payments if the continued use of a propagating
material of a protected variety exceeds a certain quantitative
restriction. Another provision stated that innovations geneti-
cally engineered from the use of a protected variety would
require authorization from the original breeder. Both these
clauses would confer rights to plant breeders in ways that would
erode the current distinctions prevalent between patents and
PBRs.

      At the present moment, efforts are underway to introduce 
a homogeneous intellectual property regime that applies
uniformly to both developed and developing countries alike. The
United States, for example, has in the 1980s forged mechanisms
aimed at pressurizing countries bilaterally or through
institutions like GATT, to accept conditions of property regimes
which gives it comparative advantage over competitors. Through
the 1974 US Trade and Tariff Act, and the 1984 Amendment, the US
has responded to recent technological developments by
spearheading large scale changes in the existing structure of
intellectual property rights.(10) In recent years, patenting of
naturally occurring microorganisms and genetically engineered
animals in the US have extended the scope of protection and
property rights debate. The notion of extraterritoriality is now
emerging as a major weapon of trade by the US in her attempt to
harmonize and enlarge patent protection.(11) And organizations
such as GATT and the World Intellectual Property Organization
(WIPO) are the international vigilantes in that regard.

      From that perspective, it would be relevant to examine the
contentious issues developing countries have raised with regard
to conservation and utilization of genetic resources. Developing
countries house, by far, the largest resource chest of germplasm
resources anywhere. The US-led property restructuring efforts
and their implication for international uniformity pose dramatic
consequences for biodiversity conservation and sustainable
utilization developing countries.


     5. Ownership regimes and intellectual property rights

Existing intellectual property regimes currently being
advertised as model laws by WIPO, GATT and other organizations
promoting international trade have evolved within specific
economic and institutional settings.(12) Until recently, many
developing countries were on the periphery of the evolving
global institutional and legal structures. But the issue that
has directly triggered their sensibilities, which until a few
years ago was not of central concern, is the extension of
property regimes to cover germplasm resources in their midst. It
transpired that the infringement of intellectual property
regimes would carry penalties affecting Third World countries in
particular, largely because the externally determined regimes do
not recognize community and farmers' rights to genetic resource
ownership.

      Over the years, the flow of germplasm to developed
countries has in fact shown that the ICs have become the net
beneficiaries of the free exchange of genetic resources.(13) The
idea of "global commons" based on the principle that genetic
resources are a common heritage of mankind deprives national
economies, particularly DCs (where the concentration of these 
resources is greatest), from their equitable and sustainable
utilization. The free exchange of genetic resources as advanced
by the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR)
and other functionally-related organizations have raised
concerns about the legal status of biodiversity material
collected from developing countries and now residing in the gene
banks around the world.

      While products generated from these collections and the
associated processes are patented, the raw material base from
which such innovations were made possible are treated as public
goods. And yet, farmers over the centuries have expended great
efforts in genetic resource selection and germplasm
conservation. The regimes of ownership are very well developed
when it comes to commercial products, but the raw material from
which the products are derived, have regimes not well developed.
In situations where these regimes are developed, for example in
community ownership of germplasm resources, they remain
unrecognized.

      The irony is that this lack of recognition is shared by
both the country where indigenous ownership rights happen to be
and the wider international community characterized by a robust
system of intellectual property patterns. Commercial sectors
have developed a variety of means to protect their technologies
which ensure the flow of higher economic rents for their
innovations. They include: patents, copyrights, trademarks,
secrecy, access to co-specialized assets, lead times required to
launch new products, and learning curve experiences which are
only cumulative inside firms. While equivalent patterns of
ownership exist at the indigenous levels, recognition is far
from being realized. And yet secrecy, learning curve
experiences, and access to complementary assets are some aspects
of proprietary protection that local communities operate.

      The policy challenges that many developing countries have
to address is the creation of an incentive regime for local
communities capable of conserving biological resources, and
consequently ensuring a system of returns for their efforts in
this direction. For a large array of germplasm resources, their
free collection, and eventually development in the technological
phase of the commercial sector guarantees returns that
compensates inventors for their research investment and
specialized knowledge.

      Indeed, a system for returns is based on the requirement
of recognition of rights. In the absence of a regime that
guarantees income streams to the local communities for their
efforts in the identification of plant properties and 
characteristics, and conservation of genetic resources, the
future of these resources in the evolution of sustainable
patterns of life-supporting systems is in jeopardy.

      However, where benefits from some species can be guaranteed
to sustain subsistence livelihoods, attempts will be exerted by
the local communities to sustainably use a part of the genetic
diversity. But the scale at which biological diversity is
considered transcends the immediate requirements of subsistence
by creating the sort of environment that will activate indige-
nous drives to establish an inventory of plant properties and
characteristics of wider commercial and industrial significance
in this new age of biotechnological advances. A relatively
distant ecosystem within communal boundaries may thus end up
providing a rich stock of relatively unused or previously
unknown, genetic resources. A property rights regime that gears
a community to explore, discover, inventory, conserve and
sustainably use biological diversity within its reach is what an
incentive structure is all about. It not only broadens the
community horizons by extending their focus beyond subsistence
concerns, but also sensitizes them to the value of biological
diversity in its totality. The thrust for a sustainable con-
servation strategy will therefore be drawn from an incentive
package that guarantees income streams.

      In the light of these emerging concerns, it is clear that
an imbalance exists between the traditional communities who have
played a vital role in genetic diversity conservation and those
who have extracted knowledge from these communities and ended up
as the sole beneficiaries. The structure of the international
intellectual property system is designed in such a way as to
accord rights to those who can patent specific chunks of knowl-
edge, but not necessarily the real originators of that knowledge
or the niche developers and conservationists.

      A case in point involves local researchers and germplasm
collectors in Nigeria who had identified a sweetener, thaumatin,
extracted from berries growing wild in forests. This
technological feat was, however, of no revenue consequence to
the Nigerians despite the potential value of the sweetener to
the confectionery industry. The gene thaumatin was cloned and
patented in Britain and the communities around the niches where
the protein was first identified have not benefitted at all.
Nigeria is also not a beneficiary of the natural cowpea trypsin
inhibitor gene, known for its insect-killing ability.(14) Again,
its ancestral source is not deriving benefits from commercial
arrangements that the gene is currently accruing to its exotic
environment. The world patenting system is imbalanced in that
regard.

      An incentive regime can also ensure that conservation
programmes do not lead to genetic drift and the phasing out of
naturally occurring plants. Genetic erosion could be prevented
upon the recognition of community-based property rights, thus
protecting indigenous varieties. There is also the potential 
within such a system to prevent the eradication of a wide range
of genetic resources which over the years have improved a
farmer‘s elasticity of response in the face of adversity.
Adaptive capabilities are therefore likely to be present in a
system that offers multiple possibilities rather than one based
on uniformity and standardization. Variability is thus preserved
as a consequence of a property regime that recognizes fun-
damental proprietary communal arrangements.

      The question that arises now is what form should the
incentive package take to guarantee a viable system of
biodiversity conservation and utilization. Related to these
broad concerns is the issue of institutional evolution, and how
organizational structures that impinge on socio-economic forma-
tions could be redesigned to capture the essence of germplasm
conservation and benefit from their utilization in a new
economic setting. It is to these issues that we now turn.


5.1 Agricultural genetic resources

Any intellectual property regime must carefully balance the
benefits gained through free access to technological innovation
and those gained by restricting access through recognition of an
intellectual property right in order to encourage further
innovation. Many countries have established systems of plant
breeders rights, which grant an individual exclusive right to
sell a specific variety but do not preclude farmers from saving
the seed of the variety (farmer plantback), and do not preclude
others from using that variety in a breeding program (breeders
exemption). Many in the plant breeding industry have argued that
this level of protection provides an insufficient incentive for
research investment and have advocated closing "loopholes"
related to both farmer plantback and the breeder exemption. The
revised UPOV convention now allows countries to restrict farmer
plantback and extends Breeders' Rights to cover "essentially de-
rived" varieties - that is, new varieties based largely on the
genetic makeup of a protected variety.

      In response to pressure from the biotechnology industry,
another change adopted by a number of industrialized countries
has been the extension of patent protection to genes and
varieties. Under the patent system, any breeder developing a
plant that contains a patented gene must obtain a license from
the patent holder. Countries differ widely in the extent to
which they allow such patent protection of living material. At
one end of the spectrum, the United States grants patents on
novel DNA sequences, genes, plant or animal varieties, and
biotechnological processes. In contrast, the European countries
do not extend patent protection to plant and animal varieties,
and many developing countries exempt biological processes and
products entirely from their patent regimes.

      A number of concerns were expressed by the Nairobi Experts‘
group regarding this trend toward increasingly strict IPR
protection. First, though both the principle of "essential
derivation" included in the UPOV convention and the extension 
of patent laws to genes and varieties helps increase the
incentive for research investment, this incentive may be out-
weighed by the costs to society of restrictions in the flow of
the genetic material. It has commonly been assumed that
unrestricted flow of genetic resources for use by breeders will
ensure that the maximum benefits‘and the most equitable
distribution of those benefits‘are achieved. Thus, until
recently, plant variety protection made no attempt to restrict
access by breeders to protected varieties for use in their
breeding programs. Patent protection of genes and varieties
entails a significant change in that it allows breeders to
restrict access to the genetic resources that they market.

      In light of the risks entailed in such restrictions, the
group discussed options for restricting patent and Breeders‘
Rights to better ensure accessibility of germplasm for breeding
purposes. One option is to maintain two types of IPR regimes
over genetic resources. Under such a scheme, free access would
be maintained for unimproved germplasm while proprietary rights
would be maintained for improved or modified germplasm exchanged
in the business community. Several of the requirements for such
a system to be effective that were discussed include:

a)    The need for an international fund or some other means of
    compensating farmers who are the custodians and developers 
    of much of the world's "unimproved" germplasm. One such fund 
    is the FAO Fund for Plant Genetic Resources.

b)    The need to ensure that developing countries receive the
   benefits of advanced technology derived from their germplasm
   at a non-monopolistic price.

c)    The need to carefully design patent schemes to balance the
   costs and benefits of restricted access. In particular, it was
   noted that countries should not restrict the experimental use
   doctrine (whereby genetic material can be used for 
   experimentation without the need for a license from the patent
   holder). By allowing experimental use of patented material,
the
   breeder utilizing the patented material would be in a much
   better bargaining position after a successful improvement has
   been demonstrated.

d)    The potential role of a system of "dependency licenses,"
   whereby a compulsory exchange of licenses is imposed  (between
   the original patent holder and the breeder with a patent over
   a new variety containing the patented gene or essentially
   derived from the patented variety) when the two parties do not
   reach an agreement voluntarily.


      A second option, discussed in greater detail above (p. 4),
is to extend the scope of intellectual property rights to cover
those categories of genetic resources traditionally thought of
as "unimproved". Such a change would be in keeping with the fact
that "unimproved" genetic material is often the product of
considerable breeding and selection by farmers. It would thus
serve as a mechanism for returning benefits to the farmers and
communities and would serve as an incentive for further
development of the resource.

      The group also discussed a more fundamental problem
entailed in extending the patent system to cover genetic
resources. Genetic resources differ from other resources covered
by intellectual property rights in that they undergo
evolutionary change. Consequently, while the right recognized by
society for the intellectual contribution of a breeder or
genetic engineer for their intellectual contribution to a
specific variety is clear, its application to subsequent
generations of the plant, animal, or microbe is problematic.

      The human contribution recognized by IPR for genetic
resources is essentially a "jump" in evolution that would not
have occurred under natural conditions. This discontinuity may
result from such activities as the introduction of a gene, the
breeding of two distinct varieties, or artificial selection.
After such a change has been made, the organism itself continues
on an evolutionary trajectory. The goal of IPR protection is to
provide an incentive for innovation leading to such a jump in
the evolutionary trajectory. Currently, the move toward patent
protection assumes that the only means of providing that
incentive is to extend the monopoly right to cover not only the
innovative step but also the subsequent natural evolutionary
changes that will occur. (This problem is not faced by
traditional plant variety protection laws, although it does now
exist in the case of the "essential derivation" clause in the
revised UPOV convention.) Thus, there may be merit in exploring
means of maintaining the incentive of IPR protection but
restricting the property right to the actual innovative step.
Such a change may require entirely new schemes for intellectual
property protection related to genetic resources.

     6. Trade related aspects of intellectual property rights

Intellectual property rights have increasingly become the focus
of trade-related disputes and negotiations among countries.(15)
While growing recognition of the important role  of
technological advance in stimulating development has aroused
interest in establishing effective IPR regimes in countries
around the world, simultaneously, the expanding exchange of
technologies across international borders has subjected such
regimes to close scrutiny from their trading partners. In
general, industrialized countries have maintained that
differences in intellectual property rights regimes should be
viewed as potential barriers to free trade and should be dealt
with in an international trade forum, while less-developed
countries have argued that IPR regimes must be tailored to
development needs and not be subjected to international
control.(16) Currently, many less-developed countries exempt
pharmaceuticals and living organisms from patent protection and
only a small number grant Plant Breeders‘ Rights.

      At the urging of industrialized countries, and after
considerable resistance from developing countries, the Uruguay
Round of negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade established a negotiating group on Trade Related Aspects
of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The principal
motivation of industrialized countries in these negotiations has
been to stop what they see as the "piracy" of the intellectual
property of their nationals. In addition, they argue that
strengthened IPR would provide incentives for the establishment
of private-sector research and development in developing
countries, and would facilitate technology transfer between
industrialized and less-developed countries.(17) Industrialized
countries are thus pressing for uniform patent standards in all
countries on par with their own current standards. These issues
have also been raised in the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO) and a revision to the Paris Convention on
Intellectual Property is being considered, but WIPO is likely to
defer such action until after negotiations in GATT are con-
cluded.

      While not denying the potential role of strengthened IPR
protection, the participants in the Nairobi Experts Workshop
questioned the appropriateness of uniform patent standards given
the widely varying circumstances in developing countries. The
theoretical justifications advanced in favor of uniform patent
protection do not hold in the face of empirical evidence. For
example, a recent UNCTAD study has shown that adoption of patent
protection in a number of African countries has not led to the
development of a strong private-sector involved in technological
innovation.

      Moreover, many less-developed countries now emerging as
newly industrialized countries have, in fact, established their
technological expertise not through competition at the cutting
edge of technological change (which would be  encouraged by
strong patent protection) but through the adaptation of existing
technologies to meet local needs and new markets. Strict patent
protection can undermine this ability to imitate at low cost.
Many industrialized countries have followed this same route in
certain industries. France did not begin to grant patents for
pharmaceuticals until 1958, nor did Japan until 1976 or
Switzerland until 1977.

      Moreover, in the pursuit of uniform patent standards,
little attention has been given to the unique ethical and
economic attributes of genetic resources which suggest that they
may need to be approached somewhat differently from industrial
products. From an ethical standpoint, the morality of patenting
life (such as, the United States decision to allow patenting of
human tissue), has raised serious questions.(17) From an economic
standpoint, the ability of agricultural genetic resources to
self-reproduce and undergo evolutionary change raises difficult
questions regarding both the enforceability and legitimacy of
patent protection. In addition, a number of observers have noted
that IPR protection for agricultural genetic resources may be
hastening the loss of genetic diversity and threatening the
livelihoods of marginal farmers. Thus, considerable uncertainty
surrounds the development of intellectual property policies for
genetic resources - it would clearly be premature to adopt
uniform global standards under such circumstances.

      Thus, participants at the Experts Workshop argued that
countries should be able to adopt IPR protection consistent with
their development needs, particularly in the case of genetic
resources. At the same time, the participants felt that some
form of IPR protection for genetic resources could be of
considerable value, but that the establishment of such regimes
would require simultaneous action to establish regulatory and
enforcement mechanisms and to address potential negative impacts
on biodiversity or on the distribution of benefits among sectors
of society.

      A consensus was reached that:

   
   International negotiations on intellectual property rights
   should ensure that countries are free to decide whether or not
   to adopt IPR protection for genetic resources and how strong
   that protection should be. Steps should be taken to strengthen
   the capacity of countries to design and implement intellectual
   property rights regimes that meet their development needs.

7. Common heritage or common concern?
 
At present, the issue of ownership and access to genetic
resources (mainly found in the South) and technologies
(biotechnologies and genetic engineering, mainly found in the
North) is the most critical subject in the search for a global
biodiversity strategy. The different and sometimes acrimonious
positions taken by contending protagonists is a measure of po-
tential and perceived benefits that exploitation of genetic
resources may generate. At the same time, it points to
fundamental questions of equity and economic justice in world
trade relations, and how existing imbalances in global property
regimes could be redressed to allow for a more structured fair
play in international distribution of wealth.

      Historically, germplasm has been seen as a common heritage
of mankind. The concept of global commons arose from the notion
that genetic resources have existed for thousands of years and
are for the benefit of all. They constitute part of nature's
bounty and posses the property of reproduceability. Genetic
resources in the conventional meaning are resources independent
of human activity or ingenuity; they are assumed to be there and
have always been there in their raw form.(19)

      This position, shared mainly by policymakers and government
officials in industrialized countries, is then used to argue for
a regime of free germplasm exchange. The calls for the free
access to all genetic resources are based on the belief such
exchange would bring the greatest benefit to the greatest
number. This neo-utilitarianism is to exclude mutants and elite
varieties developed privately. However, many developing
countries are pressing for a uniform regime of free access to
all germplasm.

      In the past, genetic resources have been treated as common
heritage, materials that belong to everybody. In retrospect,
this notion originates from the law of the sea debates. That
notion was severely challenged in the biodiversity June meeting,
that these resources are not a heritage of mankind, do not fall
under international jurisdiction, but are instead found in
sovereign states. Secondly, it is material that is actually
owned by communities, and so nations have sovereign rights over
these materials. The notion of common heritage does not
therefore apply to these resources.

      Collection of germplasm from specific locales, it has been
argued, does not reduce the amount left behind, and even though
ownership and control of germplasm resides with farmers before
collection, these quantities that have been taken away no longer
form part of their heritage. But wild plants, i.e. the primitive
cultivars, landraces, and weedy relatives, are generally assumed
to be outside the pale of farmers heritage and therefore
globally owned. Since 1983, the FAO Undertaking resolved that
even elite varieties, mutants and new breeding lines are a part
of the global commons.

      Sedjo (20) observes that genetic resources are limited in 
supply largely because they are amenable to genetic erosion,
genetic loss, extinction, and/or even disruption. Habitats
therefore cannot be regarded as global assets. According to him,
the structure now embodied in FAO resolution 8/83 of 1983 is
likely to lead to erosion of germplasm resources, because no fi-
nancial, economic, and non-material incentives exist to drive
governments, individuals and private agencies to protect and
conserve biodiversity. He proposes a system of expanded property
rights to include the conventional genetic resources and
genetically improved cultivars, mutants and current breeding
lines. He further observes that because issues of definition
have hampered unambiguous description of genetic resources,
which in the main made the conferring of genetic property rights
difficult to assign and enforce, recent advances in
technological innovation has opened up possibilities of defining
genetic resources unmistakably. Conferring of rights would also
provide the incentives to protect germplasm which could oth-
erwise disappear. The present global structure of incentives and
rewards is lopsided extending gains to ICs and depriving DCs the
financial benefits from their genetic treasures. In a sense,
absence of recognition of traditional and indigenous property
rights denies native communities from deriving income streams.
At the same time, lack of recognition of property rights may
also affect protection and conservation programs which are
neatly woven into the fabric of native cultures.

      Reid argues that an equitable formula in the distribution
of benefits can only come about by ushering in a new
international biological order.(21) The quest for this new order
is necessitated not only because equity considerations have so
far been neglected but also because exploitation and utilization
of biodiversity is increasingly showing signs of genetic
erosion, species loss, and ecosystem disruptions. These
developments mainly account for the increasing prominence
biodiversity issues have acquired in recent years. They also
highlight the limitations of the market ethic in directly
addressing environmental concerns and conservation issues.

      The market syndrome refers to the perception that market
forces are a pervasive and universal factor in material and
human relations. It views resources, biological and physical, as
subject to the market spell and influence. Moreover, believers
and preachers of this model see the market as sacrosanct, as an
ecumenical shrine that determines prices of all and sundry. The
very fact that the market is seen to be all-embracing and
ubiquitous in character illustrates the strong economic
orientation of policies which have so far been formulated to
tackle conservation and utilization of biodiversity.

      The growth of welfare economics had partly to contend with
resource allocation problems that were largely non-market in
character. There were goods and resources whose costs and
benefits were not reflected by market prices, could not be 
produced privately because of indivisibilities, and were
potentially surrounded with uncertainties for private concerns
to exclude them in their calculus. Many of these resources also
came to reflect two further elements: non-rival consumption and
non-excludability. In time, these aspects came to be referred to
as public good characteristics.

      In recent years, a number of observers and commentators
have argued that conservation, preservation and utilization of
genetic resources are characterized by market failures largely
because these resources exhibit public good characteristics. For
instance, benefits of genetic resource protection extend far
beyond the country directly protecting the resource even though
conservation costs are ultimately borne by the country within
whose borders the protected habitat happens to be. In short, an
economistic approach to habitat conservation may show that
proximate benefits of such protection are indeed reaped
elsewhere and not by the resource-conserving country. Partly
because private interests have not had the incentive to conserve
and preserve biodiversity, and partly due to the necessity of
protecting genetic resources to prevent climatic change,
environmental organizations have applied pressure on governments
to protect tropical forests and wildlife habitats. These
particular resources, and their conservation, are seen by free
marketeers as belonging to the public sector province largely
because germplasm consumption does not reduce its availability
to others.

      Reid subscribes to the view that regards genetic resources
as public goods, and given these non-private attributes, they
lend themselves easily to under-investment in conservation and
under-investment in research. Apart from research into hybrid
varieties for which incentives are naturally locked into the
idiosyncrasy of the seed itself, inducements to invest in
biodiversity research and conservation are virtually non-
existent or very limited. Given these premises, Reid says,
governments have used two broad policies to protect genetic
resources: the first covered policies of public research
expenditures and demarcation of threatened ecosystems as natural
reserves or protected zones; the second addressed policies of
intellectual property rights. When property rights are conferred
to germplasm resource conservation and utilization, it is then
possible to conclude that genetic resources can be subject to
forms of market behavior.

      World agriculture is essentially a product of a three-
pronged genetic resource policy. The first aspect of policy
centred around conservation and enhancement through manipulation
of genetic information. This refers not only to traditional
approaches of intergenerational breeding, but also the use of in
vitro micropagation techniques, protoplast fusion and tissue
culture technologies in genetic resource enhancement. The second
aspect revolved around ecological relocation. Ecological
translocation refers to the  introduction of a plant or animal
species in a new environment. One of the major advantages of
changing the ecological context of a species is that disease and
pest vectors do not accompany the transfer process.

      The third factor cited by Reid focussed on the modification
of the environment itself. By changing the environment, he means
increasing the complexity of an agro-ecosystem by introducing
intercropping. But it also means adding fertilizers, pesticides
and organizing irrigation. In this respect, agro-ecological
innovation would refer to the diversification of an agro-
ecosystem that would allow soil renewal and pest balance to take
place.

      It has since become clear that the existing genetic
resource policy framework is substantially centralized, with
crop breeding activities carried out not to suit specific local
environmental circumstances, but to generate a product whose
characteristics conform to an invariably uniform band of
environmental conditions. Although decentralization of agro-eco-
logical research is deemed essential to appropriately suit local
conditions, cost-effective concerns have necessitated
centralized breeding activities. These trends have been
reinforced by the introduction of IPR systems which are only
instituted in situations that promise attractive rates of re-
turn. This is usually the case when a broad market base is
assured, and a broad base is, almost by definition, large enough
to transcend the agricultural peculiarities of specific
ecological niches. In a sense, IPR systems would seek the
development of highly adaptable varieties in environments that
are uniformly homogeneous.

      Centralized research systems and environmental
modifications through the use of external inputs are at the
heart of agricultural modernization. A wide range of far
reaching consequences have been linked to these processes. These
include the erosion of genetic diversity largely characterized
by the virtual disappearance of a traditional highly diverse
system, and the introduction of an improved but rather reduced
varietal diversity system. In short, traditional varieties have
wide species and genetic diversities, while improved varieties
have limited species and genetic diversities. The constriction
of the genetic base (narrowing spatial diversity) is accompanied
by the growth of highly adaptable varieties marked by heightened
temporal genetic diversity. The latter refers to the relatively
short period of genetic resistance of a new cultivar before it
succumbs to new pests and diseases. At the same time,
replacement of spatially diverse traditional systems of organic
farming by developing genetically adaptable varieties with short
life spans is largely associated with high input systems.
Reduced varietal diversity, given the high input requirements,
erode much of the gains that are generally associated with it.
On the other hand, spatial genetic diversity systems are high
productivity systems with varieties tailored to local
conditions.
 
      It also needs to be borne in mind that high input systems
characterized by reduced varietal regimes are temporally diverse
genetic systems for which developing country farming systems are
unable to cope with. Cost imperatives and risk factors
associated with farmers‘ vulnerability are sufficiently
compromising in the transition to high input agriculture. There
is also the issue of elasticity of response in situations of
crop failure, and the built-in mechanisms of security that
genetically diverse systems can afford.

      In addition to these drawbacks, high input systems are also
known to be environmentally and ecologically disruptive.

      With these deficiencies and environmental difficulties in
mind, Reid calls for the introduction of a new biological order.
Central to this new order is the quest for a strategy that
promotes an equitable and sustainable utilization of genetic
resources. The key features of the biological order include the
transfer of technologies that can be used to address and solve
local agricultural problems, public support of decentralized
agro-ecological and crop breeding research, and the formulation
and renovation of genetic resource and agricultural policies
that presently inhibit informal innovation.


     8. Towards a biodiversity strategy

In the present century, new approaches in resource management
and biodiversity conservation have been devised. However, the
environment has almost always been taken as a constant. A range
of policies for conservation of wildlife, forests, wetlands, and
fisheries were formulated and institutions formed to address
these issues.

      At the same time, international organizations have spelled
out the need to integrate environmental concerns, and many NGOs
have mushroomed in recent years concentrating on conservation
issues. These efforts have been supplemented by wide-ranging
legislation on conservation, and also on publicity campaigns
geared to the promotion of national and international awareness
of ecological issues at large.

      However, despite these commendable efforts, the degradation
of the environment is increasing and continues to threaten
species and ecosystems in all their diversity. It seems that the
endeavors have helped widen public awareness, and that the
recognition of environmental and ecological factors in the
development process far outstrips the management and conser-
vation strategies so far forged. Secondly, the cropping up of
new institutions has been accompanied by approaches that are
more economistic and less systemic. Economistic in the sense
that conservation efforts which are not amenable to market
solutions have received inadequate forms of attention. The issue
of private concerns and the public good character of biodi-
versity have thus been seen as dichotomous, and only strategies
that yield market solutions  are regarded as optimum.

      The systemic factor has largely been ignored in roles that
these institutions have played in conservation strategies.
Again, this aspect reflects the nature of institutional
constitution and evolution. Many of these institutions draw
their knowledge base from a system of scientific rationality
whose constitution is essentially Cartesian and fragmentary.
There is therefore the tendency to break environmental
phenomenon into its constituent components and addressing each
one atomistically. This is why specific institutions have sought
jurisdictional powers over certain environmental activities and
have regarded similar or closely corresponding activities un-
dertaken by others as exercises in encroachment.

      The third problem that many of these institutions have
suffered from is their inability to innovate in the light of the
emerging systemic paradigm. A shifting knowledge base seeks to
witness institutional adjustments and evolution. Strategies tend
to acquire an all-embracing character.

      Conservation strategies and institutions have also taken
a narrow approach. Some organizations have sought to only save
the rhino, the parrot, or the elephant. Yet, action and
conservation programmes of this kind have limited effectiveness
partly because environmental concerns cannot be so easily
straight-jacketed. The elephant is part of a very diverse
ecosystem, and without integrating the elephant within the larger
whole is to weaken the efficacy of conservation efforts.

      A fifth dimension of institutional flaw concerns the
conservation movement itself. Indeed, some of the earliest
conservationists have been naturalists, but because conservation
strategies are not peculiarly naturalist and straight forwardly
technical, their efforts have achieved commendable albeit
limited results. Given the ecological dimension of conservation
programmes, economic, political, cultural and social concerns
need to be integrated into the strategies.

      A sixth dimension of institutional weakness is seen to
operate through insulation. Many NGOs do not seek to understand
the force of traditional, community-based institutions in
conserving biodiversity. How communities have approached
biodiversity conservation is not a matter subject to inves-
tigation or study. These local institutions ignore the larger
environment issues at stake. Yet, an understanding of their
activities and how they naturally blend with nature, is bound to
be an eye-opener in conservation efforts.

      For well over two decades, the standard pattern employed
in tackling biodiversity conservation problems have tended to
focus primarily on the more immediate causes of limited protected
areas, weak mechanisms for legal enforcement against poaching
and contraband trade in wildlife products, and inadequate
systems of controlling trade activities on  endangered and
threatened species.(22)

      These were thought to be the fundamental areas of policy
concentration if biodiversity conservation strategies were to
succeed. Yet, while these broad areas of policy attention have
achieved some worthy results, other important underlying causes
seem to have been institutionally divorced from the agenda for
conservation. They include activities in agriculture, industry
and mining, with all the attendant problems linked to rural-
urban migration, settlement patterns, pollution, transportation,
and waste disposal.

      Many of these plans have not been able to address the basic
and underlying causes of species loss extinction or erosion.
Their success will lie with how they harmonize themselves with
broader plans that cover ecosystems and interactions with other
ecosystems, i.e. how global these species action plans are in
terms of easily marrying with other plans. These, then, are some
of the major weaknesses of species-specific action plans.

      One of their greatest advantages is drawing attention to
the plight of threatened or endangered species on the verge of
virtual extinction. The identification of hotspots may result in
the mobilization of urgent action to save processes of erosion
from further deterioration. At the same time, such immediate
purposive concentration may also result in the enlargement of
information base, not only on the specific species in question,
but also on proximate causes that are fed into the fundamental
causes in a global strategy of action. Additional valuable data
may also be generated that sheds more light on how the species
interact with their ecosystems.

      A number of action plans have been derived to tackle
biodiversity conservation. Many of these plans share fundamental
weaknesses of failing to address the qualitative side of
biodiversity resource management. They also tend to focus their
attention on governments and external donor agencies, with
limited appreciation to involve communities directly affected by
these policies. These trends are further aggravated by
marginalizing other relevant spheres and policies bearing on
forestry. Once the forest is defined and identified, policy
attention concentrates on it as though it is an exclusive entity
thriving on its own. Its relationship with other resources is
not taken into account. But more importantly, forest resource
management do not entail policy innovations in the light of new
data and expanding information base.

      Protected areas have been identified and laws enforced
primarily as one aspect of conservation policy. Organizations
involved in work on PA include IUCN, UNEP and World Conservation
Monitoring Centre (WCMC). Their main task is to review the
statutes of existing protected areas, emphasize the importance
of conservation in protected areas and recommend the enlisting
of other areas deemed essential for protection, especially
stressed habitats. These functions constantly demand sifting 
alternatives and priority action, as well as outlining efficient
management approaches in handling reserve systems.

      They also demand a constant review of protected areas by
measuring the extent of protection, coverage in terms of species
diversity, endemism, erosion, commercial value, land-use
conflicts and management approaches.

      Apart from action plans international and national
organizations have formulated strategies that address
conservation. These documents have had considerable value, but
also suffer from severe limitation. The predominant flaw of such
strategies is that their focus is too narrow, and it is
precisely because of this dimension that their impact is
restricted to specific species in question. Indeed, many of the
recommendations suggested do not relate easily to local
communities constantly that have interacted with protected
areas. When these recommendations are implemented, groups are
isolated, and this results in migrations and movement to
locations that have little to do with age-old, time-tested
patterns of survival. Dislocation then generates disharmony with
the new environment, especially when the basic elements
possessed by the erstwhile environment are lacking in the new
one.

      Conservation of biological diversity in many DCs is seen
solely in terms of formulating sectoral strategies. What is
often not realized is that biodiversity questions are in
themselves supra-sectoral, and that any attempts to sectoralize
the problem will yield counterproductive and unsustainable re-
sults in the long-run.

      The environment is a system of nested hierarchies, each
feeding and interlinked with the other, but each sufficiently
autonomous within certain limitations. And so, the ideas of
fragmented what is naturally an organismic superwhole are
defeatist, and that solution will be temporary. Conserving
biological resources, is in its very essence, a collective en-
deavor pulling together what are seemingly diverse institutions.

      The current state of knowledge, using science and science
rationality as the objective basis of building knowledge, has
conditioned the examination of processes and phenomena largely
in terms of understanding basic units. Phenomenon is seen as
composed of a large number of potentially separable units, and
that the sum of these units make up the phenomenon. The success
of positivism as an epistemological method has tended to
influence its use in the study of social phenomena and other
realms of thought that are not necessarily amenable to such
applications. Phenomena is stacked from the prospective of the
notion of balances, where negatives are cancelled out by
positives, and ultimately an optimum conclusion is reached. The
idea that an equilibrium is a satisfactory condition, a state of
affairs reached with a balance of opposites, fails to account
for mechanisms and actual processes that need a diversity of
approaches.
 
      The optimal solution is regarded as the ideal solution
capable of resolving the complex diversity and sub-optimal
dimensions of a phenomenon. The application of the proposed
solution then begins to generate contradictions, and these
become large and more persistent with time. The sub-optimal
‘elements‘ then become action targets themselves, and the system
is driven to a different level of contradiction if similar
optimal strategies are developed and implemented.

      In recent years, IUCN developed a Conservation Action Plan
for a massive forest in the Guinea-Congo forest belt, of which
six countries are affected. The plan sees the forest as a
sector, but national approaches to biodiversity conservation may
cancel each other if fragmented, sectorally based strategies are
developed. Indeed, the forest is divided into sites, and each
project takes a different approach in forest resource
management; experiences are then shared through a network of
workshops.(23)

      One of the limiting drawbacks of such a system is that
while a comprehensive and systemic value of the forest resource
is recognized, the institutional solution adopted is far from
being ecological. This results from the consideration of
national boundaries as determining the courses of action.
However, issues of surrendering sovereignty partially are
essential in transferring power to a conservation team that is
supra-national in character. This team then engages the local
communities utilizing the resources for their livelihood and
patterns of culture, and works in harmony with them. But
breaking the forest into a series of projects and then sharing
knowledge is counterproductive from the start.

      The design of action plans and their implementation no
doubt has helped steer consciousness of conservation matters in
highly commendable directions. Many of the action plans and
strategies have paved the way for the preparation of a global
conservation strategy on biodiversity. The main aim of a global
strategy is to offer a common perspective in efforts to prevent
any further deterioration in the world environment. It seeks to
draw attention to the significance and pricelessness of genetic
resources, their preservation, maintenance, sustainable
utilization and conservation, and the root causes of their
degradation.

       The issue of root causes addresses the existing national
and international policies and incentive regimes that impinge on
existing patterns of biological resource use. It is already
clear that the prevailing institutional structures are inade-
quately disposed in ensuring sustainable utilization of genetic
resources. This conclusion is derived from evidence of high
depletion and extinction rates of species, ecosystems and
genetic resources. The extirpation of forest areas leads
inevitably to imbalances and ecosystem disruptions.

      The present trends in climatic changes are largely due to
unsustainable exploitation of renewables and non-renewables,
including deforestation and all its attendant biodiversity 
erosion. Unfortunately, the preservation, maintenance,
sustainable utilization and conservation strategies are ex-
pressed largely in economic terms. The Global Strategy put
forward by IUCN, WRI and UNEP have proposed an approach that is
price-denominated, and also an incentive structure amenable to
cost-benefit analysis. Policy reforms in national and
international legal structures must fundamentally be economic in
design, and institutional changes and training must integrate
economic incentives in conserving biological diversity. This
approach, however, is far too limited for any effective results
to be realized.

      Economic modelling with built-in incentive structures is
thus seen to be the proposed strategy in addressing questions of
biodiversity conservation. While this approach is seen by us as
compromising, the Global Strategy quite rightly regards local
rural communities as units of analysis partly because community
systems and their biological and abiotic environments are the
ones to be most directly affected when proposed strategies are
implemented. As viable systems that have until recently evolved
harmoniously with nature, they also have been guided by an
information resource base peculiar to their specific demands and
patterns of life. This knowledge base is invaluable in preparing
and designing conservation strategies aimed at sustainable
utilization of genetic resources. It is therefore cardinal to
regard as particularly central the economic, sociological,
political, religious and sacred values of rural communities when
modern aspects of science and economic production are integrated
into a viable strategy.

      The spread of environmental consciousness among non-
governmental organizations, government officials, policymakers,
international researchers, etc., has increased efforts to
disseminate information that would strengthen environmental
institutions in their conservation programmes. This process is
greatly supported with continuing work by scientists and
environmental researchers in general. Obviously, the centrality
of science in building biodiversity inventions is recognizably
crucial. What we already know is too limited but nevertheless,
extremely vital in opening up new territories through guidelines
provided by information already at our disposal. The fundamental
function of science would therefore be the use of systematic
knowledge-gathering methods to expand our horizons of in-
formation related to identification, description, inventorying,
studying, and monitoring genetic, species and ecosystem
diversities. Furthermore, a thorough assessment and description
of community-based, traditional ethnic and tribal units for an
understanding of how their systems have, until recently,
operated sustainably. Because traditional knowledge is
disappearing faster than the ability of scientists to build the
necessary inventories, there exists an additional sense of
urgency to delineate priorities of action for threatened
habitats and suggest forms of natural resource management and
utilization.  

      The recognition of traditional systems as important poles
of conservation knowledge also implies that any new strategy
should involve those communities. Above all, scientific and
technological developments unknown to traditional communities
but which nonetheless promise to improve life through better
production and more disease-resistant innovations can be
introduced and adapted to suit local conditions. The inputs of
science may therefore necessitate institutional innovations, but
attempts to preserve ecosystem functioning should be the
hallmark of any conservation strategy. At the same time, policy
reforms needed to ensure a viable approach to conservation
presupposes a thorough understanding of existing policies and
institutions, modes of resource managements, threatened species
and habitats, and patterns of land use. Sustainable management
of biodiversity will therefore entail the useful application of
science and information gathering.


8.1   Incentives and genetic resource conservation

The introduction of technical change in a new environment
invariably demands institutional innovation and structural
reorganization. During the 1970s, the successes of agricultural
modernization induced by the far reaching biotechnological
developments of the Green Revolution led to a virtual
repudiation of the Malthusian bogey after it was seen that food
production far outstripped population increases.(24) The
transformation was so successful that the improved high yielding
cereal varieties became extensively used with tremendous results
the world over. Many farmers were becoming converts as large
numbers joined the fray in using new cultivars of the Green
Revolution. However, this widespread conversion to the
biotechnological upheaval was accompanied by growing concerns
about genetic and biodiversity erosion as local varieties and
landraces were being phased out. The spectre of genetic erosion
and species loss loomed large.(25) These fears led to a critical
re-examination of natural resource conservation and management
approaches, and new strategies were devised to collect, save,
and evaluate germplasm in ex-situ and in situ storage
facilities.

      In 1974, the International Board for Plant Genetic
Resources was set up to facilitate a global plant germplasm
network with emphasis on field collection of food crops. A host
of other organizations mushroomed with objectives of plant
conservation. It soon became clear that this was a formidable
task requiring international co-operation and massive funding.

      The 1983 Resolution 3/83 established the International
Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources that defined genetic
resources as the heritage of mankind subject to free access and
exchange without restrictions. This resolution raised
fundamental questions on the issue of sovereignty over genetic
resources. On the one hand, ICs argue that the inclusion of
special genetic stocks and improved cultivars in the  Resolution
potentially denies rewards to breeders for their time, effort
and resources expended on genetic enhancement. On the other
hand, even if the ICs depend on DCs for raw germplasm to develop
proprietary crop varieties, the amounts collected are so small
as to make any perceptible difference to available resources. In
any case, some argue, gene flows have been either North-North or
South-South and very rarely South-North. For example,
Kloppenburg and Kleinmann show empirically that 88 percent of
African food production is largely drawn from crops originating
from Latin America. About 56 percent of Latin America‘s food
production is derived from crops originating from DCs. Not only
is the idea of a South to North flow a false assumption, but
that such South to South interpenetration will make claims of
payments too complex an exercise.

      Harlan offers a startling perspective. He argues that
tropical materials are not adapted to temperate regions and that
temperate agriculture is independent of gene flows from the
South.(27) If germplasm from the South is of little consequence
to the North, why is the North making expeditions to the South
to collect germplasm? Are these expeditions borne out of altru-
ism? Or is it because the North has so much empathy for the
South for them to improve germplasm for DC's benefit? It is
important to bear in mind that at least 25 percent of
pharmaceutical drugs consumed in the West derive their sources
from tropical plants. The rosy periwinkle, obtained from the
tropical forests of Madagascar, have reduced child mortality
from Leukemia significantly. According to Gupta, out of 119
chemical substances extracted from tropical plants, 70 percent
of the medicines treated ailments identified by local
communities in DC's.(28) Moreover, crops that dominate the
world‘s agricultural system are not indigenous to industrialized
countries. It is inconceivable that trends of gene flows have
been North to North and South to South as though the North-South
divide is brickwalled, and that things cannot even pass by
osmosis. The fact is that expeditions of germplasm collection
have had a long history, and the North has ended up benefiting
substantially even if the exchange is ultimately South-South.

      It is worth noting that colonial agriculture was not
indigenous to DCs but was based on collections stored in
European Botanical Gardens that subsequently became the source
materials for monoculture economies of the South. Again, this
was not based on philanthropy or charity, but on the profit-
motive. Harlan should see the DC statistics of the terms of
trade for products introduced by colonialism. For many of these
products, DCs produced what they did not consume. And the
existing patterns of commercial agriculture in the South was not
easy: European powers fought hard among themselves to establish
footholds in far-flung locations of the South. One need not be
reminded that the system fostered in the 19th century benefits
the ICs in the 20th century more than anybody else.
 
      It is indeed true that many new varieties and medicines
were developed out of the germplasm freely obtained from the
DCs. Germplasm came to be seen as the basic raw material in
biotechnology. The strategic value of germplasm has been
recognized, and more recently, it became increasingly evident
that commercial agriculture in the west was based on a system of
narrow genetic uniformity that was extremely vulnerable. The
continued success of that agriculture, a multi-billion dollar
business, will depend on increasing productive performance by
inserting pest or disease-resistance genes of landraces and
primitive cultivars from the south. It is not surprising that
seed companies in the North are at the forefront in urging for
collection expeditions and pushing for germplasm as a common
heritage of mankind.

      To a very great extent, germplasm resources have acquired
highly valued significance as a result of potential
opportunities they offer in meeting material challenges of the
future. Their current monetary value cannot be known because
their utility has not as yet been determined. But the value of
biological diversity need not be measured by its utility. Value
is intrinsic to biological diversity.

      The potential economic value of genetic resources(29) and
the increasing displacement of landraces has intensified efforts
for their preservation and conservation. The growth of
genetically uniform, narrow varieties has increased the
vulnerability of highly productive commercial agricultural
systems as loss and erosion of biodiversity takes place.
Germplasm conservation has also been influenced by perceptions
of utility and economic returns that germplasm utilization
entails particularly for seed companies that use raw materials
for genetic improvement. Anxieties also became acute as
proprietary issues among DCs loomed large. Related to propri-
etary considerations are climatic imperatives that affect
biodiversity. Global warming, deforestation, industrial and
agricultural development have been known to disrupt and destroy
biodiversity. Driven by these trends, the need for conservation
became ever more compelling.

      Compensation for conservation and protection of landraces,
weedy relatives, primitive cultivars and genetic resources in
general emerged mainly because IPR systems of the North
protected the end-products without due remuneration of suppliers
of raw genetic resources from DCs. According to Harlan,
compensation for the use of exotic germplasm should take the
form of supporting plant breeding programs in the DCs. He is
averse to the idea of DCs assuming national sovereignty over
germplasm since this step would restrict gene flow and convert
genetic resources to bargaining chips. Other forms of
compensation suggested by him include trading primitive
cultivars and landraces for new high-yielding elite varieties,
and encouraging DC farmers to grow landraces as a hobby.

      The notion of trading landraces for elite varieties is
fraught with problems of genetic erosion. Secondly, farmers in 
many DCs are poor and high-input systems of agriculture can
easily undermine their occupations if an elite crop is wiped out
because of genetic vulnerability.

      To grow landraces merely as a hobby is to ignore the
realities of poverty in many DCs. Recent World Bank statistics
show that there are far more people living below the poverty
line than at any other time in history. The critical issue among
these people, many of whom are subsistence farmers, is survival.
How can hobbies be enjoyed when one has an empty stomach? With
the food crises in DCs, telling farmers and a starving popu-
lation to mount hobby horses is, to say the least, insulting to
their intelligence. It is a ball game that many would not even
attempt to participate in.

      Cohen states that international efforts at conservation of
genetic resources are disparate and program-oriented, and the
insulation of these activities from each other erode much of the
effectiveness of biodiversity conservation endeavors largely
because collaborative links between programs and projects are
limited or lacking.(29) This weakness is also partly reinforced
by a rudimentary biodiversity knowledge base, and notes that the
exchange of scientific information "enhances international co-
operation by transferring technologies critical for conserving
or using global biological diversity." What ought to be
mentioned, however, is that scientific exchange is not the
critical determinant of such technology transfers, but are
instead influenced by recognition and adoption of IPR regimes of
the supplier country. To a considerable extent, firms in
industrialized countries are said to express willingness to
transfer technologies to developing countries (DCs) only when
effective IPR protection systems are established in DCs.

      Cohen notes that new initiatives need to be forged to
ensure sustainable utilization of biological diversity.
Conservation of germplasm calls for innovative management
strategies, but according to him these strategies involve stark
choices. Since in his estimation not all natural resources can
be conserved, only those that yield immediate utility should be
treated as appropriate mainly because of their potential to
raise productivity, enhance diversification and attract new
sources of funding.(30)

      While this selective approach guarantees conservation on
the basis of utility, it needs to be mentioned that genetic
resources thrive in ecosystems of interlocking arrangements, and
so choosing "appropriate" resources without a broad-based
holistic programme is counter-productive. At another level,
strategic harmonization of management approaches is recognized.
But what role traditional systems of conservation are to occupy
in this new strategy is not clear.

      Cohen's focus therefore is primarily addressing issues of
germplasm regeneration through international linkages and co-
operation. Genebanks need to be assured of fresh supplies from
respective localities so as to minimize genetic drift, enhance
long-term viability of stored seed, build accurate and  proper
inventories, ensure efficient storage system, and effect
adequate characterization. Equally essential is the interaction
and complementarity between national germplasm programs, IARCs
and donor agencies. The issue of funding in harmonizing what may
otherwise appear to be isolated programs is particularly central
in the efficient and wider utilization of ex situ collections.
But what is clear is that the existing arrangements of networks
and genebanks are not adequately disposed to reverse global
erosion tendencies. One reason cited by Cohen is that consumers
have not been paying for environmental costs. So far, costs of
applying science to fathom tropical problems for biodiversity
conservation have been borne by primary funding agencies and
governments in the form of direct subsidies or taxes. Even this
form of funding has had its limitations because of poor
estimates and unrealistic budget levels.

      Partly due to deficiencies of current arrangements, Cohen
suggests that new sources are needed to ensure efficiency in
conservation efforts. The argument is that conservation efforts
should in principle ensure generation of income, and that
utilization of genetic resources should equally generate
financial returns. It was also suggested that IPR systems allow
for equitable distribution of profits earned from biotechnology
to promote conservation. However, what innovations would reflect
equity are not stated by Cohen.

      With regard to genebanks and in situ conservation
programmes, Cohen argues that once the value of such investments
is recognized, it is the quality of services offered by either
ex situ or in situ institutions that will determine their growth
as users' confidence expand. Pathogen contamination, poor
viability, inaccurate inventorying, etc., are aspects of
services likely to erode income or lead to losses of income as
trust wanes.

      The conception of biodiversity utility in purely financial
terms arises because budget allocations and competition for
scarce resources dominates decision-making. So far, ex situ
conservation programs have had to contend with limited resources
as more is being diverted to activities of cultivar development
and release. There is also the view that other conservation
requirements for, say, in situ programs are catered for by other
funding agencies and so appears to somebody else‘s priority.
Cohen laments that priority-setting tends to ignore the broader
challenge of germplasm conservation in general. There are
increasing signs that national programs, for lack of funding and
technical resources, are directing greater efforts on food crops
that have a direct cash impact. These trends are exacerbated by
the emergence of new relationships between IARC's, public
institutions and privatization schemes. New demands are now
being placed on developing countries receiving research funds
from the private and public sectors of the industrialized
countries. Compliance with IPR protection is indeed one area
likely to receive  considerable attention.

      In the United States, Monsanto, one of the biggest
agricultural biotechnology companies, has in principle agreed to
negotiate gene deals with Third World farmers prepared to use
their genes in crop production. The formula devised by the
company provides for a substantial repatriation, almost two
thirds of profits, to farmers in those regimes. The remaining
profits will be shared equally between Monsanto and a breeder
who develops commercially useful seeds from Monsanto genes.(32)

      This formula, however, only considers genes that are
patented by the company and does not provide information on the
source of raw genes that made modification possible. The
assumption in this model is one based on free germplasm
exchange, but it could also rest on contractual arrangements
with breeders in developing countries. The inclination is more
towards free access to genetic resources. Walgate observes:
"Companies will also wish to maintain access to developing
country genetic resources. If developing countries could control
the use of their extensive genetic resources, they would have an
important negotiating card." Some of the gene deals will involve
the transfer of technologies to developing countries. These
include technologies for locating and introducing genes. Some of
these may already be in the public domain.

      In recent years, a fresh reappraisal has been cast on the
issue of just compensation for germplasm obtained from the
South. Burton(33) sees the free exchange of genetic resources as
benefiting the whole of mankind. He sees the tradition of
scientific exchange and commercial development as having
contributed substantial gains in the multi-billion, crop
production business in DCs. Controlling access to genetic
materials is thus regarded as a counterproductive measure since
the whole of mankind will stand to lose from restricted
arrangements. Although present suggestions call for attachments
of price tags for biological materials exchanged, Burton is
skeptical about the utility of this approach to humankind in
general. From his estimates, royalty payments based on sales of
improved strains derived from tropical germplasm would be too
small to generate any significant benefits. In any case, funds
needed to conserve and maintain genetic diversity are of a
higher order - in billions of dollars - compared to multimillion
inflows from royalties. These costs, seen against conservation
requirements are easily offset by the benefits that Dcs enjoy in
food production. In consequence, any attempt to confer
proprietary rights to wild genes would undermine benefits that
the global community is likely to accrue. Economic incentives
are seen to be less powerful in generating global benefits than
intellectual ones. This is even more so when considerable
research effort is expected to be expended by the private
sector.

      Burton concedes that the proprietary rights of the private
sector need to be well-designed and balanced with  conservation
funding so that DCs can benefit significantly from
biotechnological revolutions. He also stresses the importance of
an intellectual property structure that would enable DCs acquire
biotechnologies from the North to accelerate the flow of
reciprocal benefits. One way of reducing the "biotechnology gap"
is for DCs to make good use of technologies already in the
public domain. Another approach would be to ensure that genetic
resources as found in nature remain unpatentable. Only modified
genes, i.e. genes introduced into a novel host or behaving
usefully and remarkably differently in a new host or environment
can justify patentability. The new property structure should
also encourage the generation of "essentially derived" varieties
rather than restrict novel breeding. Furthermore, "experimental
use" of patented varieties should not be subject to controls if
the aim is to understand the basic underlying genetic
mechanisms. Problems may usually arise with the final product,
depending on whether the patented gene had been modified or not.
A contractual arrangement between the experimental user of a
patented gene and the patentee could define courses of action
and direction in the event of novel developments.

      An aspect that requires careful handling in the
intellectual property regime is the issue of ex-territoriality.
There are attempts by ICs to extend to other countries specific
patent requirements if goods from those countries are to have
market access. This process of building internationally uniform
IPR systems is bound to accentuate trends towards monopoliza-
tion. Exporting countries will be forced to comply with national
regulations of importing countries if trade is to continue
flowing.

      Burton's approach to conservation of biological diversity
is based on the assumption that genetic resources are a common
heritage of mankind and therefore need to be exchanged freely
and without restrictions. From this basic premise, conservation
requires a global effort, even though financial payments for
biodiversity conservation to succeed will largely have to be met
by ICs.

      There exist a number of funding facilities created for
purposes of addressing biodiversity. The Global Environmental
Facility (GEF), created by the World Bank in 1990, is by far the
largest in financial terms. This facility together with NGOs'
support, cater for scientific studies, habitat, ex situ and in
situ conservation. Burton believes that funding should be
subject to scientific control. Other measures cited to help
conservation are based on user‘s fees. Depending on the sales a
certain percentage could be directed to conservation of
biological diversity.

      Much of Burton‘s paper, however, concentrates on IPRs,
funding mechanisms, role of ICs in conservation of biological
diversity, and the need to sustain perceptions of common
heritage for the entire benefit of humanity. The paper does  not
throw light on traditional systems of property rights that
operate among indigenous communities in DCs. Considerable re-
sources, labor, financial, and moral, have been expended in
protecting varieties and tropical germplasm in a very conscious
way. Many of these communities are now under pressure to change
their agricultural systems of great diversity to monoculture
patterns of life introduced by development projects. Their lives
are being disrupted under the enormous weight of new strains.
While biotechnological revolutions will be sustained by the
continuing diversity of biological resources, the communities
that have conserved them over generations are being treated as
receivers of the new wisdom. Their own contribution and
knowledge of germplasm is ignored, while at the same time, the
ICs are not recognizing these indigenous property rights.
Mechanisms for compensation are likely to be very different if
intellectual property rights are designed to reflect this
reality in DCs.


     8.2 Creating incentives for conservation and innovation

Existing Intellectual Property Rights regimes were designed to
promote innovation, but there is no inherent reason why such
regimes could not also serve to promote conservation. However,
at the current time not only are existing regimes failing to
serve this goal, they may tend to undermine genetic resource
conservation.

      Because the use of IPR as public policy relies on
incentives created by market mechanisms, such regimes introduce
many features of the market that inadvertently undermine genetic
diversity. In agriculture, for example, the value of a new crop
variety developed in the private sector and protected by IPRs is
related to the size of the market. Consequently, the best
strategy for a private firm is to work with widely utilized
crops and to attempt to develop highly adaptable varieties or to
introduce new varieties in a package with inputs (fertilizer,
irrigation, or pesticides) that create more uniform
environmental conditions.

      Moreover, specific attributes of existing IPR regimes
pertaining to agricultural genetic resources provide still
further incentives for the loss of diversity. The "uniformity"
requirement of plant variety protection (wherein the offspring
of a variety must be identical to the parent), for example,
ensures that varieties released under plant variety protection
contain relatively little genetic variation.

      The Nairobi expert's workshop discussed how these
homogenizing trends could be corrected in existing IPR regimes
and how new property rights tools may serve to provide
incentives for conservation and the promotion of diversity. It
was noted that the recognition of property rights at the
national and local level could, in principle, provide greater
incentives for national and local conservation of the resource.
For example, national seedbanks in most countries face severe
funding limitations and are thus unable to serve effectively as
a center for conservation of a country's agri cultural genetic
resources. The group discussed a proposal to allow genebanks to
charge for the value they add by evaluating and characterizing
germplasm.

      If corporations or public research institutions paid for
access to information on the characteristics of the germplasm
(resistance to specific pests, adaptation to certain soils,
etc.) then both an incentive and the funding would exist for the
genebank to invest in the characterization and conservation of
the material. Such a scheme, rather than impeding the flow of
genetic resources as many fear, would make more information
about the resource available and ensure its conservation‘thereby
facilitating the flow of the material. A number of problems with
this specific scheme were raised, thus without further
investigation it serves only as a conceptual example of the
potential for providing new incentives for conservation.

      More generally, the group discussed the following avenues
that might serve to promote the conservation of biodiversity and
local innovation that may serve to maintain and enhance
diversity within countries.


Promotion of informal innovation.

Existing IPR policies are not geared to stimulate independent
innovation by farmers, medicinal healers, and other involved
daily in the development of new genetic resource technologies at
a local level. While the nature of IPR systems precludes their
direct application at this level, other national policy changes
may serve to provide a framework that could foster such
innovation. In the agricultural sector, it was noted that input
subsidies, food price subsidies, overvalued exchange rates, and
credit policies that discriminate against "minor" crops and
traditional varieties all tend to reduce the incentive for
informal agricultural innovation.

Adding value to genetic resources
One of the chief problems with any effort to broaden the
coverage of intellectual property rights to include unimproved
resources is that the value of the material involved is often
extremely low. For example, although ‘leads‘ on potentially
valuable medicinal plants are important, much of the cost
involved in the development of marketable pharmaceuticals stems
from the process of screening the possible candidates, isolating
active compounds, testing for possible toxicity, and then
undertaking clinical trials. In the case of agricultural
royalties, it was noted that the total benefits that might be 
gained if developing countries sought royalties for unimproved
genetic material could amount to less than $100 million
annually.

      However, the potential benefits increase rapidly when value
is added to the material in the country of origin. The
possibility of charging for the value added by a seedbank in
screening its materials is one such example. Another example is
the National Biodiversity Institute in Costa Rica (INBio), which
has established a chemical screening facility to explore
rainforest species for potentially valuable compounds.(34)
Combined with a project to inventory and collect Costa Rica‘s
species and a conservation database, the screening facility is
geared toward the exploration of the diversity of Costa Rica for
potential contributions to development. Once active compounds
are discovered, INBio will be in a strong position to negotiate
royalty arrangements with foreign companies or license the mate-
rial to Costa Rican firms.

Reorienting national and international agricultural research
Current national and international research programs are geared
toward solving problems through centralized crop breeding and
research. While the current guiding principle of such research
institutions is to solve problems, the group noted that this
orientation should increasingly shift to a focus on providing
tools to strengthen nations‘ and farmer's abilities to solve
local problems and meet local needs.



    8.3 Indigenous knowledge, traditional rights and
environmental conservation

For well over a decade, international debates over intellectual
property rights and genetic resources have centered on questions
of equity in the distribution of the benefits received from
intellectual property protection of genetic resources. On the
one hand, developing countries have questioned the equity of
granting a plant breeder a property right to his or her
innovation while denying a similar right to the generations of
farmers who created and nurtured the diversity that is the raw
material used by the breeder. On the other hand, industrialized
countries have stressed that IPRs are not a form of compensation
but rather an incentive for innovation. These countries argue
that farmers engage in on-farm breeding and selection because
they receive direct benefits from such activities and thus do
not require an added incentive in the form of IPR. In contrast,
commercial plant breeding will not take place without the
incentive provided by IPRs.

      An interim resolution to this debate was achieved by the
Commission for Plant Genetic Resources when it revised the FAO
International Undertaking for Plant Genetic Resources to
recognize both breeders' rights and farmers' rights. Breeders'
rights are rights such as those granted under Plant Variety
Protection which grant a breeder exclusive rights to sell a
specific variety under a specific name. Farmers' rights, in
contrast, are communal rights, vested in the international
community, recognizing the contributions of local communities
and farmers in the creation and maintenance of genetic 
resources.

      Although a significant conceptual advance was involved in
the recognition of farmers‘ rights, it has proven extremely
difficult to turn the concept into a reality. Rather than
attempting to provide an answer to this problem, the
participants in the Nairobi Experts' Workshop redefined the
question. The group noted that the central issue addressed by
the concept of farmers' rights is not restricted to farmers, nor
is it restricted to "just compensation." A wide variety of
people involved in agriculture, forestry, gathering of natural
products, and traditional medicine possess significant knowledge
of the resources and have often been directly involved in the
manipulation of the resource to better meet human needs. The
intellectual contribution of such people includes specific
manipulation of the resource (as through identification of
useful species or the selection or breeding of crop varieties)
as well as the development of knowledge of resource management
systems.

      Any individual or community should be equitably compensated
for ideas or innovations they have developed that prove useful
to others. But the participants in the Nairobi Experts' Workshop
noted that the reason for concern over the protection of
traditional knowledge is not restricted to the issue of just
compensation. First, the group noted that in some cases the
recognition of an intellectual property right should be
considered a basic human right. For example, copying a sacred
painting cannot be justified merely by the offer of "just
compensation" - rather it is the right of the group to deny the
opportunity to reproduce the painting as part of their cultural
mores. More generally, it was argued that at this level of basic
human rights the knowledge possessed by local communities (and
the genetic resources they possess) should not be taken without
the agreement of the community.

      Second, particularly in light of the growing threat of the
loss of diversity, the group noted that an expanded concept of
farmers' rights can also serve not only as a means of ensuring
just compensation but also as an incentive for conservation and
further local innovation. Just as society extends IPRs to the
private sector to encourage innovation, it was noted that IPR
could be used as a policy tool to increase the investment in
developing new technologies related to genetic resources at a
local level and to increase the conservation of such resources.

      Thus, the need for recognition and protection of the
knowledge of local communities stems from three concerns: basic
human rights, just compensation, and incentives for innovation
and conservation. The concept of farmers' rights was felt to be
too narrow in scope to address this full range of concerns.
Currently, the approach that has been adopted to implement the
concept of farmers' rights has been the establishment of an
international fund that will be used to support national and
local conservation efforts particularly  in developing
countries. The group discussed a variety of other avenues for
action that could bring more direct benefits to local
communities in recognition of the broader set of concerns
involved.

State recognition of individual and communal rights
It was argued that despite the considerable difficulties in
enforcement, the recognition of such rights would serve as a
means of community empowerment and would help establish the
legal basis for ensuring that future collection of genetic
resources or local knowledge returns some benefit directly to
the local community.

Codes of conduct
Whether for genetic resource collectors or for professional
societies involved with anthropology or genetic resources,
participants in the Experts‘ Workshop discussed the possible
need for codes of conduct that recognize community and
individual rights to knowledge and genetic resources and which
predicate research or collection on agreements involving forms
of compensation and accountability.

Copyright
The issue of the misuse of tribal names for marketing of non-
tribal products was discussed, and it was suggested that the
tribal name could be copyrighted to protect against such use.
Similarly, it was noted that a geographic name could be
protected in a manner analogous to the "appellation controlee"
used in the wine industry. Such tribal or regional recognition
may have an added benefit of providing an incentive for local
adaptation of crops and the development of local varieties.

Contractual relationships
It was noted that even in the absence of the establishment of a
formal IPR system pertaining to genetic resources, contracts can
ensure the return of royalties or other benefits to local
communities or individuals for the knowledge or resources that
they provide to pharmaceutical or agricultural companies.

Other intellectual property right mechanisms
The group discussed briefly the potential application of other
mechanisms such as the WIPO/Unesco Model Law on Folklore, Trade
Secret Protection, Patent Law, and Plant Variety Protection. All
such mechanisms deserve further investigation.

"Corporate" Community
The point was made that the corporation provides one model for 
how the communal rights of a local community could be
represented, since a corporate structure is basically a means of
granting a community of people (the shareholders) the legal
standing of an individual.

International funds
Despite skepticism as to the extent to which international funds
would actually filter down to the individuals and communities
due compensation, the group saw such funds as potentially
playing a useful role in addressing some of the inequities in
the use of genetic resources.

      For many developing countries, the living forest and its
inhabitants possess genetic resources likely to be potentially
useful which many of us know very little about. Knowledge of
species and the interdependence between the living forest and
its inhabitants is far too limited. The erosion of genetic
wealth and the disappearance of communities ecologically locked
in a self-sustaining and harmonious balance is raising grave
concerns about phenomenal losses which, if conserved, will
ensure the preservation of choices for future generations. It is
indeed alarming to hear that tropical rain forests the size of
Belgium have annually been transformed into wasteland in the
Brazilian Amazon. Some of those choices may lie in the
improvement of agriculture, while others may widen the scope of
medical discoveries and industrial applications.

      But because habitat destruction is, almost by definition,
irreversible, the cultures that disappear and the knowledge base
that goes with it is far too infinite to be realistically
calculable within a single life-time. And because knowledge
building takes time, the preservation of these choices into the
future may at least enable technical experts to identify and de-
scribe species upon which policy decisions are made, is
undertaken.

      Posey paints a very sombre picture, and rightly so (35).
In
the Amazonian region alone, he estimates that one Amerind group
has disappeared annually over this century. Their knowledge
systems evaporate and many more are threatened with destruction.
In a sense, cultural extinction is accompanied paripasu with
virtual knowledge death, and this could be likened to a whole
library of human experience being razed to the ground and incin-
erated. Posey treats this state of affairs as a global tragedy:
"with the disappearance of each indigenous group the world loses
an accumulated wealth of millennia of human experience and
adaptation."

      The fast disappearance of cultures and their respective
knowledge bases is seen to be a consequence of ecologically
destructive development that many government officials sanction
without according respect to customary and traditional practices
of the living inhabitants of forest regions. One way out of this
doomed existence is to ensure that native peoples acquire
internationally recognizable rights to their land, culture and
traditional knowledge, and compensated for by users of
traditional wisdom in developing natural, green products. The
drive for natural  products developed from plant genetic
resources obtained from native peoples could generate an income
stream that sustains ecological soundness and economic security.
Just prices should therefore allow a percentage of the profits
to be recycled to native peoples. Labelling and inserting the
country of origin of the natural pharmaceutical products derived
from traditional medicine are aspects that can ensure expansion
of ecologically sound traditional practices. And quite as
important is the issue of intellectual property rights of native
peoples and the evolution of just compensation schemes for local
knowledge.

      Posey surveys a number of international organizations in
relation to property rights and concludes that the issue has not
been addressed in its own right in any international convention.
Although the protection of native populations is cited, this
dimension is seen more in terms of progressive integration
rather than autonomous cultural diversities to be preserved. The
United Nations General Assembly (GA), The World Bank (WB), World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), etc. are less di-
rectly involved in matters of recognition and promotion of the
rights of native populations. The ILO has been the most
steadfast in pivoting for recognition and discussion of
indigenous issues.

      Given the amount of resources it wields, and the extent of
its contribution to many projects the world over, the World Bank
can steadily integrate human, ecological and genetic resource
concerns in mitigating the destructive nature of projects that
it finances. Posey also observes that just compensation of
native peoples, their knowledge and biodiversity could be
introduced as a conditional prerequisite for project approval.
Other organizations whose influence on the formulation of an
international convention on IPR of native peoples can be
considerable is WIPO and UNESCO. The latter could consider the
question under the culture agenda, and indeed broaden its
mandate to mobilize action based on complaints of natives.
Following the formulation of Model Provisions for National Laws
on the Protection of Expressions of Folklore Against Illicit
Exploitation and Other Prejudicial Actions in 1985, WIPO has
sought to address the issue of infringement of folklore
traditions and lamented that exploitative commerce and abuses of
expressions of folklore has so far not been subjected to change.
Part of the problem has been in the wording, where terms like
"works" which have legal connotations under copyright
terminology, have been omitted, and instead use an innocuous
form of phraseology lacking emphatic legal content. When
appellations like "expressions" and "productions" are applied to
describe actual works of folklore which in most cases exists in
non-material form, their exploitation or prejudicial distortion
receives limited judicial sympathy.

      On the basis of tradition, the issue of copyright has
always been associated with an individual, a group of 
individuals, or specific institution(s). Historically, legal
protection and the enjoyment of rewards has tended to rely on
clear mechanisms of identification and recognition of natural
and legal persons. While users and exploiters of folklore
traditions have benefitted, communities producing and sustaining
those traditions through cultural involvement and participation
are not guaranteed percentages of profits largely because the
international copyright system fails to legally identify native
beneficiaries. Although folklore traditions cannot be directly
associated with individuals, they certainly can be linked to the
specific native communities.

      Posey argues that even if the concept of ownership poses
difficulties, a leaf could be borrowed from the model provisions
by dealing with "competent authorities" or "communities
concerned". Furthermore, folklores can be treated as
‘performance of a work‘ and still be acceptable under copyright
agreements contained in the 1961 Rome Convention for Protection
of Performers. The cramped definition of existing international
copyright conventions needs to be expanded to cover traditions
which can be subject to streams of income when commercially
exploited. This aspect would inspire the native peoples to
preserve their folklore, which in any case is a tightly knit
fibre in an ecological web of relations between human activities
and the larger social, economic and political environment. These
folklore traditions express much of the concerns affecting
native peoples in their history, from famine, agricultural
practices, treatment of guests, and waste disposal, to war,
survival, and the criminality of unilaterally cutting down trees
of common ownership.

      The importance of native peoples in the conservation of
biological diversity has been recognized by many international
organizations. A large part of this recognition is based on the
belief that indigenous peoples have every right to dwell in
tropical forests and also have their homelands protected from
ecologically disruptive development. In conjunction with this
right is the legitimization of traditional knowledge in
endeavors to formulate conservation policies. However, this
recognition is just beginning to crystallize and has some great
distance to cover before international organizations incorporate
the "tradition ethos" in their thinking and  action.

      Posey regrets that even though the protection of native
peoples, their tropical forests, homeland, traditional
knowledge, expressions of folklore, and issues of just
compensation are human rights in orientation, human rights
organizations have not yet braced themselves to these concerns.
One way of raising consciousness among human rights
organizations is for NGOs to write directly to such
organizations, and also impress upon WWF, IUCN, the Gaia
Foundation in London, WB, and regional and international
organizations such as OAU, EEC, LAFTA, and UN, the linkages
between biodiversity conservation and protection of native
peoples.

      By way of conclusion, Posey recommends that one option of
ensuring protection of native peoples is to guarantee flows of
income as an incentive to preserve their cultural heritage. This
could take the form of direct contracts with native communities
for authority to film, photograph, and record expressions of
folklore. But over and above the authorization request, a
proportion of income from books, slides, articles, videos and
dissertations should go directly to the native communities.
These gestures will not only heighten consciousness among the
respective communities about the value of their work as measured
by others, but also intensify efforts to preserve their
folkloric heritage.

      In India, Haribhai's case illustrates an important link
between religious and cultural diversity and biodiversity.(36)
Pricked by his religious and cultural conscience, Haribhai
decided to discontinue using pesticides in his farm. He observed
that levels of pesticides used, the mortality rate of birds, and
the toxicity in pests and birds were strongly correlated. Re-
sorting to organic farming, Haribhai realized after a while that
not only were his farming costs lower than before, but his field
became naturally repopulated with birds, frogs, earthworms,
insects, etc. This rejuvenation was also complemented by yields
comparable or higher than from farms in the neighborhood fields.

      Haribhai's example is certainly not an isolated case. The
Kaya and Turkana cases in Kenya show quite graphically the
strong correspondence between cultural diversity, biodiversity
conservation, and ecological sustainability. The Kaya complex, 
a symbiotic system of humans, culture and forest resources, is
associated with the Mijikenda peoples who fled south from
Southern Somalia and settled in the lowland Tropical Forest of
the East African coast.(36) They then came to constitute the
Mijikenda, an ethnic system of nine tribes. On settlement the
Mijikenda built forest communities and drew much of their
livelihood from an ecological relationship with the forests. The
residential villages came to be known as the Kayas. Their
prosperity and survival, spiritual lives and agriculture were
linked to the forests that were believed to house sacred
resources, regarded as an embodiment of cultural practices and
beliefs. Indeed, it was thought that the destruction of the Kaya
forest would inevitably lead to the extinction of the Kaya
itself. During the colonial administration, some government
officers pulled down forests in Kwale and Kidzini forcing the
forest communities to abandon the Kayas. The dense forests were
also seen as safe havens for some strong medicines which could
not be placed inside the centre of the Kaya itself.(6) In the
centre of the Kaya is the fingo, a pot containing a motley
collection of medicines. It constituted part of the magic to
ward off evil spirits. The fingo was deposited in a meeting
house called the moro, a residential unit permanently under the
shade of a fig tree on one side and a baobab tree on the other.
This arrangement was a characteristic feature of the Kayas.

      Botanists working in these forests have concluded that the
Kayas house a wide variety of endemic species. The thriving and
survival of these species owe much to the integrity of the Kaya
system itself. The felling of trees was not allowed even though
timber for repair of homesteads was acceptable. Forest resources
were sacred groves and a number of plants had ritual uses.

      In recent years, this harmony between inhabitants and the
dense forest was disrupted. Felling trees for timber by
businessmen, the production of charcoal, and development
activities embarked upon by the Government have resulted in the
gradual erosion and destruction of the dense forests. These
interferences have incurred the wrath of the elders and
inhabitants of the Kayas. In 1969, a new mine was being
developed close to the dense forest. The elders were not at all
amused by these incursions especially when geologists and
surveyors pulled down some trees without consultation. The
sacredness of these trees to the dwellers was not taken into 
account as patches of the dense vegetation were cleared to allow
magnetic sensors to estimate the amount of the mineral resource.
The Oxford Ethnobotanical expedition to Kenya in the early
1980's noted that pollution from the mine's effluent destroyed
a number of palm trees at the edge of the forest. The forest
heritage of the Mijikenda is already running thin, and as
ecosystems are disrupted because of external influences, plants
with medicinal value and those not yet known are disappearing at
ominous rates.

      According to Gupta,(38) diversity in ecological endowment
is usually much greater in high risk environments than in low
risk ones. Inhabitants of these harsh environments have to rely
on wide variety of flora and fauna because high risk environments
militate against dependence on single, homogeneous systems of
agriculture and production. The cultural heritage of indigenous
peoples have for the most part linked diversity to collective
survival. Indeed, it was not uncommon to see erosion of
biodiversity resulting from loss of cultural diversity. Specific
forms of religious worship, and protection of sacred groves,
were part of a broad system of bioethics. Gupta cites religious
norm which regarded niches of plant and animal abundance as
sacred residences of dieties. The thriving of biodiversity is
sustained by believers largely because protection of these sites
is rewarded or recompensed in cash or kind by dieties. The
utility of indigenous folk knowledge for preservation and
conservation is considerable.

      Given the diversity of approaches in genetic resource
conservation and utilization, the market discipline seems to be
ill-disposed in ensuring ecological sustainability for resources
that intrinsically display diversity. The market is inclined to
standard, uniform quality products and centralized systems of
exchange. Markets are also averse to high risk environments. The
tendency of markets to disrupt bio-rich and diverse-prone
environments is linked to the case with which the institution
relates itself reconcilably with low risk environments. As such,
forests and ecosystems as high risk zones are acutely vulnerable
to market penetration.

      Religious and cultural practices sustain habitats 
particularly when these habitats are regarded as sanctuaries or
are a part of ritualistic festivals. When these habitats are
interfered with by Governments or "outsiders", protests may
assume a violent form. Gupta observes that many insurgency move-
ments are reactions to habitat alteration or destruction. He
further notes that forests, particularly in central India, have
been known to thrive in places inhabited by warlike (when
provoked) and aggressive tribes. Aggressive challenge is
therefore an aspect of defiance when forest resources are
trespassed or threatened by outsiders. Biodiversity conservation
becomes part of the military discipline.

      Burrow has reminded us that there are at least two
conflicting positions regarding relationships between
pastoralism, development and environment.(39) The first links
environment degradation with problems of overgrazing,
precipitated largely by massive increases in livestock numbers;
the second correlates environmental damage with disruptions of
ecologically sound pastoral practices mainly brought about by
imposing development alien to socio-cultural requirements of
nomadic life. The truth is that both these positions have weight
when viewed over different time frames. Over the long-term,
however, natural resource management in pastoral lands can be
subject to ecologically disruptive tendencies and hence lead to
tragedy of the commons primarily because externally-driven
development programmes ignore pastoral customary regulations
governing usage of, and access to, trees and grazing reserves.

      Turkana‘s semi-arid and arid conditions have confined
amounts of vegetation to sections of the ground which have
relatively pronounced moisture content. Most of the district is
thinly sparsed with vegetation, but it also contains areas of
high vegetation concentration especially around Turkwell and
Kerio rivers. Two places are notably rich, namely, the Turkwell
riverine forest and the Loima mist forest, and it is during the
dry season that shortages of woody vegetation become gravely
critical. But over time, the Turkana pastoralists developed
environmentally sound strategies of vegetation exploitation and
utilization. These were the sort of strategies that integrated
ecological concerns with sustainable resource management. These
were also strategies characterized by depth of local knowledge
on the part of pastoralists about indigenous woody species,
their survival value over the dry seasons, and the need for a
balanced harmony between ecologically sound human activities and
the environment.

      It is within this arid and semi-arid environment that an
ecological approach was evolved by the Turkana in natural
resource management. Central to this management scheme was the
issue of property and ownership rights to woody vegetation,
grass, dry season wells and riverine vegetation. Access rights
to woodlands and dry season grazing reserves was based on a
system of traditional controls and cultural institutions which 
protected a herdowner and his family from outsiders. For
outsiders, access to vegetation resources depended largely on
whether permission or concession to their usage was granted or
not. The system of Ekwar and Ere therefore embodied internally
specific and tribally recognized arrangements of property
rights, ownership and a framework of rules and regulations
governing fodder and general resource usage.

      Limits of ownership were demarcated by boundaries,
sometimes marked by trees such as Acacia tortilis, Hyphaena
compressa and Salvadora persica, and occasionally by fencing,
footpaths, wells and irrigation schemes. Usufract rights were
handed down from father to son, and were strongly patriarchal in
nature. It is also notable that visible enforcement of tradi-
tional property rights was seen to be generally more pronounced
during the dry season period, and appeared to be more relaxed
and somewhat moderated during the wet season. These comparative
enforcement modalities are a reflection of how the spreading of
risks among different vegetation types and the gravity of
sustainability and resilience are integrated in natural resource
management.

      With the onset of externally-driven development schemes
such as irrigation, ecological balances of the Turkana pastoral
system have come under severe environmental stress. The primary
reason for these development-induced disruptions is that the
Ekwar patterns of land management were not brought to bear on
the decisions prior to the implementation of irrigation and
settlement projects. The ecologically-sensitive pastoral regu-
latory strategies of natural resource exploitation and
utilization were marginalized such that any new developments
were bound to weaken the systems environmental resilience.
Disturbing an ecosystem by introducing a scheme of change
divorced from the reality of traditional patterns of property
rights and ownership is likely to result in excessive
vulnerability during times of drought and famine. Furthermore,
there evolves a gripping sense of alienation as ecological
relationships between tree species and human activities are
disrupted. These processes  may also entail an irreversible
erosion of genetic resources. Burrow therefore stresses the im-
portance of reinforcing and improving existing resource
management systems and traditional property rights in the event
of interventions. He also observes that property relationships
and social relationships are virtually inseparable in resource
management patterns, neatly woven in a healthy ecosystem
functioning of the Turkana. Encroachments that show very scant
regard of existing customary regulations, limit access to
genetic resources, and impose controls on the use of land
inevitably lead to counter productive disruptions.

      Burrow further suggests that conservation of unique flora
in the Loima forest would best occur under the Forest Act since
the legislation would re-inforce traditional systems of access
and land use. Evidence from other gazetted conservation areas
show that this approach is fraught with problems, ending up
restricting the very people it is supposed to protect. The
degradation of the Kaya system among the Mijikenda in areas
falling under the Forest Act is a case in point.


     9. Reccomendations and follow-up

Participants in the Nairobi Expert's Workshop on Property
Rights, Biotechnology, and Genetic Resources reached consensus
on two key points related to ongoing international negotiations:

1.    Continuation of the treatment of biodiversity and genetic
   resources as common heritage of humankind will ultimately
   undermine both steps to conserve and utilize the resource and
   will exacerbate inequities derived from the use of
   biodiversity.

2.    International negotiations on intellectual property rights
   should ensure that countries are free to decide whether or
   not to adopt IPR protection for genetic resources and how
   strong that protection should be. Steps should be taken to
   strengthen the capacity of countries to design and implement
   intellectual property rights regimes that meet their devel-
   opment needs.

In addition, the group identified several opportunities for
modifications in existing property rights systems or the
establishment of complementary or new systems that could address
problems related to current regimes. In no case was there
consensus on either the advisability of such changes or the
value in pursuing further research on the changes. Such 
opportunities include:

1.    The possibility of formally recognizing intellectual 
    property rights over genetic resources at the level of the 
    individual farmer or medicinal healer or at the level of the 
    local community.

2.    The possibility of establishing in a code of conduct for
   any genetic resource collection the need to enter contractual
   relationship with between the collecting institution and the
   farmer, community, or nation.

3.    The possibility of revising existing patent and plant
   breeders rights systems to lessen their negative impacts on
   genetic diversity and enable them to serve a role in
   providing an incentive for conservation and local innovation.

4.    The possibility of developing new types of intellectual
   property protection that cover only the innovative step and
   do not extend to the subsequent natural evolutionary
   modification of the organism.

5.    The possibility of modifying agricultural policies and
   research policies to foster local innovation and conservation
   of genetic resources.

6.    The possibility of adding value to genetic resources
   locally in order to command higher returns through royalty
   arrangements.


   At the African Regional Consultation on the Biodiversity
Strategy and Action Plan organized by the African Centre for
Technology Studies (ACTS) and the World Resources Institute
(WRI) in conjunction with the Biopolicy Institute of ACTS (held
June 10-13 in Nairobi) the draft biodiversity strategy and
action plan document was discussed. Significant issues that
arose are briefly examined in the next sections.

   The participants of the African regional consultation on the
biodiversity strategy recommended that an African Consultative
Group on Biodiversity (ACGB) be established. The ACGB was
charged with the task of developing an African  Biodiversity
Strategy and Decade Action Plan.

   The African Consultative Group on Biodiversity will
constitute of some of the participants at the consultation,
representatives of Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)
involved in conservation activities, members of diplomatic
community, representative(s) from the intergovernmental ne-
gotiating committee on the biodiversity convention and
representatives from relevant government departments,
representative of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and
Intergovernmental Agency for Drought and Desertification
(IGADD). The ACGB will be chaired by the African Centre for
Technology Studies (ACTS) in Kenya. ACTS serves on the Working
Party on Biodiversity for the 1992 United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED) (put footnote that CJ is in
the group) and on the International Coordinating Group on
Biodiversity.


   The specific activities of ACGB:

1.    Developing an African Biodiversity Conservation Strategy
   that defines the options and opportunities for action that
   achieve regional goals while addressing national and
   grassroots priorities;

2.    Developing a Decade Action Plan for Africa that will be
   used by institutions and individuals working on biodiversity
   programmes to enhance their activities in studying,
   conserving and sustainably using biodiversity;

3.    Developing National Biodiversity Status Reports, that make
   information on the state of biodiversity to researchers,
   NGOs, national policy-makers and donors;

4.    Analyzing the root causes of the loss of biodiversity in
   Africa with the aim of identifying and suggesting policy,
   legal and institutional reforms that will foster the
   management of biodiversity;

5.    Identifying technologies, investments and management skills
   needed to enhance the efforts of local communities in  the
   conservation of biodiversity;

6.    Developing institutional mechanisms for cooperating with
   the industrialized countries in the conservation of
   biodiversity. International cooperation will be vital for
   technology acquisition and exchange of information.


      The African regional biodiversity strategy will drafted by
the ACGB through the ACTS secretariat. Substantial input will be
obtained from members of the ACGB and through national
consultations and fora. The ACTS Biopolicy Institute in
Maastricht, the Netherlands will serve as the liaison office in
the North and will also help in the search and acquisition of
the literature needed for the development of the regional
biodiversity strategy and action plan.


    Members of the ACGB will be charged with the following
specific activities:

(a) Identifying and collecting the relevant
literature/information on biodiversity; (b) identifying persons
and institutions involved in research activities on
biodiversity; (c) conducting national studies on various aspects
of biodiversity.


   Some of the issues to be addressed by the ACGB will be:

1. The root causes of biodiversity in African countries.

2. Issues of indigenous knowledge systems/technologies relating
   to the conservation and use of biodiversity.

3. National economic policies affecting the conservation of
   biodiversity.

4. Biotechnology as it affects the conservation and use of
   biodiversity in Africa.

5. Issues of technology transfer and acquisition.

6. Property right regimes related to the conservation and use 
   of biodiversity in Africa.

7. Institutional issues e.g. regional institutional
   collaboration, institutional reforms.


   In addition to the above, the meeting urged the African Centre
for Technology Studies (ACTS) to explore ways of strengthening
policy-making capacity in the field of biodiversity conservation
and the application of related biotechnologies. It was felt that
this function could be included in the current efforts of ACTS
to identify ways of strengthening such capacity in the field of
biotechnology. One of the ways of doing this is to provide a
broader definition of biotechnology which includes the con-
servation of biodiversity. The participants urged that policy
research be carried out in those fields relevant to the
conservation of biodiversity in order to identify ways of
enhancing implementing the Global Biodiversity Conservation
Strategy.


Notes


1.  See World Commission on Environment and Development (1987),
      Our Common Future, Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K.
2.  See, for instance, Soule, M.E. (ed.) Conservation Biology:
      science of Scarcity and Diversity, Sunderland,
      Maasachusetts: Sinauer Associates. These issues are also
      discussed in Wilson, E.O. (ed.) 1986 Biodiversity.
      Proceedings of National Forum held by National Academy of
      Sciences and Smithsonian Countries: A survey of Literature,
      World Bank Discussion Papers No. 112.
3.  The issue of property rights has been a subject of
      considerable study. Western legal organization springs from
      material and philosophical orientations very different from
      those in the South. The concept of property different 
      reactions and the diametrical positions taken by the 
      contending "blocks" is a manifestation of contrasting 
      philosophical and national basis. The African workshop on 
      Property Rights, Biotechnology and Genetic Resources 
      presented  papers on legal questions. The Bromley, D.W. on 
      Rights, Property Rights, Authority, System for Managing in 
      Rosendal, G. H. Svastad Property Rights Genetic Resources 
      the search for sustainable feasibility study.
4.  These questions have been at the heart of disagreements not
      only between United States and a number of European
      countries, but also between the North and the South in
      general. The countours of the debate have been further 
      sharpened by the prospects of biotechnology and benefits
      developing countries are likely to obtain within a uniform
      intellectual property structure. For a discussion of these
      issues see Siebeck, E.W. (ed.) 1990, Strengthening 
      protection of Intellectual Property in Developing 
      Countries: A survey of Literature, World Bank Discussions
      Papers, No. 112.
5.  The link between patents and the impetus for innovation is
      cogently summarized in the 19th century debates that
      focussed on monopoly questions. See Hughes J. (1988) "The
      Philosophy of Intellectual Property" in Georgetown Law
      Journal 77, 2: 287-366 for a philosophical discussion of
      these issues.
6.  See Posey, D. (1991), "Effecting International Change",
      Cultural Survival Quarterly, Summer, 1991.
7.  These tensions are remarkedly addressed by Caldwell, B.E.,
      Schillinger, J.A., Barton, J.H., Qualset, C.O., Durick,
      D.N., Barnes, R.F. (eds.) Intellectual Property Eights
      associated with plants, North Carolina State University,
      Releigh, NC 27695, USA.
8.  See Juma, C., (1987), The Gene Hunters: Biotechnology and the
      Scramble for Seeds, Zed books Ltd, London
9.  The last two decades have witnessed increasing measures,
      acquisitions, and joint ventures involving industrial firms
      (pharmaceuticals, chemical, etc.) during plant breeding
      companies, particularly seed companies. These new forces
      have joined the bandwagon that seeks patent-like protection
      for innovations spewing from animate domains. See UNCTAD
      (1991), Trade and Development Aspects and Implications of
      New and Emerging Technologies: the case of Biotechnologies,
      TD/B/C. 6/154, Geneva, Brotzerland.
10. See Kaplinsky, R. (1989) in Juma, C. and J.B. Ojwang (eds.)
      Innovation and Sovereignty: the patent debate in African
      Development, African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS),
      Research studies No. 2, Nairobi, Kenya.
11. A USAID paper made very strong recommendations to the
      United States government to linked compliance of IPR to
      trade measures. See Boone, P.S. and J.A. Mathieson (1990),
      Intellectual Property Rights: Assessment of Current
      Policies and practices, and options for A.I.D. initiatives,
      Bureau for program and policy coordination, USAID,
      Washington, D.C.
12. One of the key arguments advanced by developing countries
      is that the intellectual property right system in the North
      evolved according to the realities of technological change.
      For this reason, imposing regimes on DC's that do not
      consider their idiosyncratic experiences is to introduce
      incompatible structures and institutions. The compulsory
      licensing requirement was introduced at a specific
      historical moment when the issue of national interest
      became dominant. For a discussion of these questions, see
      Bercovitz-Rodriguez, A. (1990), Historical trends in
      Protection of technology in developing countries and their
      relevance for developing countries, UNCAD/ITP/TEC/18, 26
      December, 1990.
13. Cases are not uncommon of medicinal germplasm from DC's, 
      for instance, being used to provide pharmaceutically active
      leads for biotechnology firms in IC‘s which endony
      producing synthetic equivalents. To a large extent,
      knowledge about their specific uses is freely supplied by
      healers in traditional communities, but alter exploited in
      commercial items. This is a form of piracy but is not
      treated as so because tropical genetic resources are
      regarded as a global heritage. See Cunningham, A.B. (1991)
      - Indigenous knowledge quarterly, op. cit. See also, Sedjo,
      A. (1988) "property Rights and the Protection of Plant
      Genetic Resources" in Kloppenberg, J.R. (ed). Seeds and
      Sovereignty: The use and control of plant Genetic
      Resources, Duke University Press.
14. For a discussion of these issues, see Walgate, R. (1990),
      Miracle or menace? Biotechnology and the Third World,
      London, The Panos Institute.
15. See Acharya, R. (1991), Intellectual Property,
      Biotechnology and Trade, paper presented at the African
      Workshop on Property Rights and genetic Resources, Nairobi,
      Kenya, June 10-15, 1991.
16. See Evenson, R.E. (1991) ‘Intellectual property Rights for
      Appropriate Invention, Bureau for Program and Policy
      Coordination, U.S. Agency for International Development,
      Washington, D.C.
17. See Siebeck, E. W. (ed) (1990) op. cit. for a survey of
      these issues.
18. See OTA (1989), New Developments in Biotechnology, 5:
      Patenting Life, Office of Technology Assessment,
      Washington, D.C. for a review of these concerns.
19. See UPOV (1985), International Convention for the
      Protection of New Varieties of Plants, Geneva: UPOV.
20. See Sedjo, A. (1988), op. cit, P.
21. See Reid, W.V. (1991), Creating A New Biological Order,
      paper  presented at the African Workshop on Property
      Rights, Biotechnology, and Genetic Resources, Nairobi,
      Kenya, June 10-15, 1991.
22. This traditional pattern emerged in the wake of concerns
      that focussed on endangered species. A whole set of
      conventions have come into being that specifically address
      designated species. Many of these efforts did reverse the
      disruptive trends, but, they would have been far more
      successful had holistic approaches been taken.
23. See MeCeely, J.A. K.R. Miller, W.V. Reid, R.D. Mittermeier,
      and T.B. Werner, (1990), Conserving the World's Biological
      Diversity, IUCN/WRI/CI/WWF-US, the World Bank, Gland,
      Switzerland, and Washington, D.C.
24. Although the prospect of food increases was given a
      profound basis with the spectacular results of the green
      revolution, a number of studies raised alarms about the
      threats of the population bomb to human welfare resource
      use, and the earth‘s carrying capacity. For an overview of
      these concerns see: Hardin, G. "Tragedy of the Commons"
      Science, 172:1243-1248. Erhlich's, P. (1969) The Popular
      Bomb, New York, Ballantine Books; and Meadows, D.R.
      Meadows, J. Randers, W. Behrens (1972), The Limits to
      Growth, London: Earth Island.
25. These anxieties and fears about species extinction are well
      expressed in Myers, N. (1988), "Tropical Forests and their
      species: Going, Going . . .?" in Wilson, E.O. Biodiversity,
      National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
26. See Kloppenburg, J.R. and R.L. Kleinmann (1988) "Seeds of
      Controversy: National Property Versus common Heritage" in
      Kloppenburg, J.R. (ed) Seed and Sovereignty: the use and
      Control of Plant Genetic Resources, Dukee University Press.
27. See Harlan, J. (1988) "Seeds and sovereign: an Epilogue"
      in Kloppenberg, J.R. (ed) Seeds and sovereignty: The use
      and control of plant  genetic resources, Duke University
      Press.
28. Gupta A. (1991) Why does poverty persist in regions of high
      biodiversity?: A Case for Indigenous property right system,
      a paper presented at the African Workshop on Property
      Rights, Biotechnology and genetic resources, Nairobi,
      Kenya, June 10-15.
29. One of the issues that the as generated both and light has
      been the question of trying to value biodiversity.
      Shcolaras are divided on this issue, particularl in regard
      to ownership. ehrenfield (1988) observes: "Assigning value
      to that which we do not own and whose purpose we cannot
      understand except i nthe most superficial ways is the
      ultimate in presumptous folly" p. 216. See Erenfield, D.
      (1988) "Why Put a Value on Biodiversity?" in Wilson, E.O.
      (ed) Biodiversity,. Op cit.
30. See Cohen, J.I. (1991) Conserving Diversity by Ensuring its
      Utility, paper presented to the African Workshop on
      "Property Rights, Biotechnology and Genetic Resources", in
      Nairobi, Kenya June 10-15, 1991.
31. The perception that only biodiversity of direct utility is
      to be conserved does not consider the significance of vital
      ecological links which may fall outside the most directly
      utilitarian genetic resources. For an appreciating of vital
      ecological links, see OTA (19..). Technologies to maintain
      Biodiversity, office of Technology Assessment, Washington,
      D.C.
32. See Walgate, R. (1990), op cit., p.
33. Burton, J.H. (1991), The Scientific and Commercial
      worlds in Genetic Resources Negotiations, paper presented
      at the African workshop on property Rights, Biotechnology,
      and genetic resources, Nairobi, Kenyaa, June 10-15, 1991.
34  For a discussion of these issues, see Janzen, D.H. (1992) "
      A south-north perspective on science in the management, use
      and economic development of biodiversity" in Sandlund,
      O.T., K. Hinder and A.H.D. Brown (eds), Conservation of
      Biodiversity for Sustainable Development, Scandinavian 
      University Press, Oslo, Norway.
35. See Posey, D.A. (1991), Intellectual property Rights for
      native Peoples: Challenges to science, Business, and
      International Law, - paper presented at the African
Workshop
      on Property Rights Biotechnology and Genetic Resources,
      Nairobi, Kenya, June 10-15, 1991.
36. See Gupta, A. (1991), op. cit. p.
37. For a historical discussion of the Kaya system,  see Spear,
      J.J. (1978), The Kaya Complex, Kenya Literature Bureau,
      Nairobi Kenya. Also of relevance in this regard is the
      report by the Oxford Ethnobotanical expedition (1981),
      KAYA: an ethno botanical perspective, National Museums of
      Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya.
38. Gupta, A. (1991), op.  cit.
39  See Burrow, E.G.C (1991) Turkana Tree Rights: Issues of
      Natural Resource Management and Policy Potentials and
      Conflicts Paper presented at the African Workshop on
      Property Rights, Biotechnology and Genetic Resources,
      Nairobi, Kenya, June 10-15, 1991.


            10. Participants

Manfred Schneider
United Nations Environment Programme
P.O. Box 30552, Nairobi Kenya
Tel: 333930; Fax: 520711
Telex: 22068 UNEP KE

Matthijs de Vreede
Radio Nederland Training Centre
P.O. Box 22
1200 JG Hilversum
The Netherlands
Tel: 31 35 47779
or
P.O. Box 39519
Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: 580627

Dr. Magnus A.K. Ngoile
Institute of Marine Science
P.O. Box 668
Zanzibar
Tel: (054) 32128; Fax: (054) 32128

Susan H. Bragdon
UNEP
P.O. Box 47074
Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: 520600 ext 4267
Fax: 520550

J.B. Ojwang
University of Nairobi
Faculty of Law
P.O. Box 30197, Nairobi
Tel: 336547;
Telex: 22095 VARSITY KE
                                  
Alan Tye
IUCN
Box 1 Amani via Muheza
Tanga, Tanzania
Tel: 502650, Nairobi
                                  
Anil K. Gupta
Chairman
Research and Publications Centre for Management in Agriculture
Indian Institute of Management 
Vastrapur, Ahmedabad- 380 015,
India
Tel: 407291, 469079; Fax 467396
Telex: 1216351
                                  
Hadley Jenner
Mennonite Central Committee
P.O. Box 14894
Nairobi
Tel: 740484                                        
                                  
Jan Jenner
Mennonite Central Committee
P.O. Box 14894
Nairobi
Tel: 740484
                                        
H.W.O. Okoth-Ogendo
Centre of African Family Studies
P.O. Box 60054, Nairobi
Fax: 747 160
                                  
J. Ndeberi
Universite du Burundi
Faculte des Sciences
B.P. 2700, Bujumbura, Burundi
Tel: 257-2-22-3578 Fax: 257-2-22-3288
Telex: 5161 BDIUNIV

Hanne Svarstad
University of Oslo
Centre for Dev. & Env., SUM-M
P.O. Box1116 Blindern
0317 Oslo, Norway
Tel: 2-454489/854489
Fax: 2-454488/854488

G. Kristin Rosendal
Fridtjof Nansen Institute
Fr. Nansens v. 17, 1324 Lysaker,
Norway 
Tel: 472-538912
Fax: 47-2-125047

J.A. Omotola
Faculty of Law
University of Lagos
P.O. Box 4015 Lagos, Nigeria
Tel: 01.825140

Chula Dahanayake
Law Department
University of Botswana
Private Bag 0022
Gaborone, Botswana
Tel: 267/351151
Fax: 267/356591
Telex: 2429 BD

Walt Reid
World Resources Institute
1709 New York ave, N.W.
Washington DC 20006, USA
Tel: 1 (202) 662 2579
Fax: 1 (202) 638 0036
Telex: 64414 WRIWASH
                                  
Rodger Lewis Mpande
ZERO and Ministry of Community and Coop Development
40 Samora Mahael, Rm 34
St. Andrews House
PO Box 5338
Harare Zimbabwe
Tel: 793671

Michel Trommetter
INRA
BP 47x 38040
Grenoble, France
Tel: 76 82 56 86; Fax: 76 82 54 55
                                  
John Mugabe
Biopolicy Institute of ACTS
Witmakersstraat 10, 6211 JB
Maastricht, The Netherlands
Tel: 043-258499 Fax: 043-258433
                                  
Rohini Archarya
University of Limburg
MERIT, PO Box 616
Maastricht 6200 MD, The
Netherlands
Tel: (043) 888762
Fax: 043-218820

Alison Field-Juma
Initiatives Publishers
P.O. Box 69613, Nairobi
Tel: 744047, 744095
                                  
Calestous Juma
ACTS
P.O. Box 45917, Nairobi
Tel: 744047, 744095
                                  
Joel Cohen
Office of Agriculture
Rm 412, SA-18
Agency for International Development
Washington DC 20523-1809, USA
Tel: 1 (703) 875 4219
Fax: 1 (703) 875 4394

Daniel W. and Joyce Bromley
University of Wisconsin
3335 Topping Rd
Madison, Wisconsin
WI 53706 USA
Tel: 608-262-6184; Fax: 608-262-4376

Darrell Posey
Museum Goeld
C.P. 399, Belem, Brazil, 66.040
Tel: 55-91-228-2341

J.M. Gopo
Biological Sciences Department
University of Zimbabwe
Box M.P. 167 Harare
Zimbabwe
Tel: 263-4-303 211 ext 1446, 1348
Fax: 263-4-732 828
Telex: 2658 Univ ZW

Evans Luseno
Kenya Times
P.O. Box 73498, Nairobi
Tel: 337840

Gakeri Jackob Kariuki
University of Nairobi
Parklands Campus
P.O. Box 30197, Nairobi
Tel: 742261/4

Louis Da Gama
Executive Director
BIA
Bio Industry Association
1 Queen Anne's Gate
London SWIH 9BT U.K.
Tel: 071 222 2809
Fax: 071 222 8876
                                  
Robert Arunga
Kenya Industrial Research
Development Institute (KIRDI)
P.O. Box 30650, Nairobi
Tel: 556362
                                  
Patrick Karani
ACTS
P.O. Box 45917, Nairobi
Tel: 744047, 744095
                                  
Abdulqawi A. Yusuf
Legal Policies Section
Technology Programme, UNCTAD
Palais des Nations
CH-1211, Geneva 10
Switzerland
Tel: 22-734-6011; Fax: 22-734-6542
                                  
John Barton
Stanford Law School
Stanford, CA 94305, USA
Tel: 415-723-2691 Fax: 415-725-0253
                                  
Emmah Kanguha Matias
Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI)
P.O. Box 30148, Nairobi
Tel: 0154-32880/1-6
                                  
Wanjiku Mwagiru
UNCED Nairobi Liaison Office
Gigiri
c/o UNDP
P.O. Box 30552, Nairobi
Tel: 333930 ext 7104

Hussein Isack
National Museums of Kenya
P.O. Box 40658, Nairobi
Tel: 742161: Fax: 741424

Kimani Waithaka
University of Nairobi,
Dep. of Crop Science
P.O. Box 29053, Nairobi
Tel: 592175

D. Kihika Kiambi
KENGO
P.O. Box 48197, Nairobi
Tel: 749747 or 748281
Fax: 749382

Boniface Makau
Office of the President
P.O. Box 30510, Nairobi
Tel: 227411

Argwings Odera
Nation Newspapers
P.O. Box 49010
Tel: 337691

J.O. Nyagua
Ministry of Research Science & Technology
P.O. Box 30568, Nairobi
Tel: 219420

Hartmut Krugmann
International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
P.O. Box 62084, Nairobi
Tel: 330850; Fax: 214583
Telex: 23062 RECENTRE
                                  
Esbern Friis-Hansen
Centre for Development Research
Gammel Kongevej 5
1610 Copenhagen V, Denmark
Tel: 33 25 12 00; Fax: 33 25 81 10
                                  
John Ntambirweki
University of Nairobi
P.O. Box 30197, Nairobi
Tel: 742261/2/3
                                  
Johnson B. Nyangeri
National Council for Science and Technology
P.O. Box 30623, Nairobi
Tel: 336173

L.O. Sese
Kenya Industrial Property Office (KIPO)
P.O. Box 30568, Nairobi
Tel: 302647
                                  
J.K. Muchae
Kenya Industrial Property Office (KIPO)
P.O. Box 51648, Nairobi
Tel: 332648 ext. 43
                                  
Rispa A. Odongo
Min. of Research, Science & Technology
P.O. Box 30568, Nairobi
Tel: 219420
                                  
Stephen Kellert
Yale University
205 Prospect ST
New Haven, CT 00511 USA
Tel: 203-432-5114
Fax: 203-432-5942

Paul Jahnige
Yale University
Ashfield Ma USA

Sally Loomis
Yale University
New Haven, CT 00511 USA

Jean-Marie Fayemi
Environment Liaison Centre International (ELCI)
PO Box 72461 Nairobi
Tel: 562015, 562022

Vicente Sanchez
Embassy of Chile
Int. House, Mama Ngina St.
P.O. Box 45554, Nairobi
Tel: 331320 Fax: 215648

Gilbert Arum
KENGO
P.O. Box 48197
Tel: 748281 Fax: 749382 Telex:
25222 KE

Bettina Ng-weno
ACTS
P.O. Box 45917, Nairobi
Tel: 744047, 744095

Perry L. Fagan
Kenya Wildlife Services (Akili Ventures)
P.O. Box 40241
Tel: 501081 ext 13 Fax: 720575

Jeroen van Wijk
University of Amsterdam
0.2. Achterburgwal 237
1012 DL Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: 31 20 5252177
Fax 31 20 5252086
                                  
Christine Kabuye
National Museums of Kenya
P.O. Box 45166, Nairobi
Tel: 742161 ex. 209; Fax: 741424
                                  
Edmund Barrow
ICRAF
PO Box 30677, Nairobi
Tel: 521450
                                  
James A.S. Musisi
Faculty of Law
Makerere University
P.O. Box 7062
Kampala, Uganda
Tel: 6768
or
3 William Street
PO Box 6768
Kampala, Uganda
Tel:23409

Silvanus Makhong-o
Insurance Marketer
P.O. Box 1073, Nairobi
Tel: 215418
                                  
Neil R. Gardiner
Kenya Wildlife Services (Akili Ventures)
P.O. Box 40241, Nairobi
Tel: 501081 Fax: 720575
                                  
Tabitha Kanogo
Kenyatta University
P.O. Box 43844, Nairobi
Tel: 810901-18 ext 320

Kigenyi Frederick
Forestry Department Headquarters
P.O. Box 1752,
Kampala, Uganda
Tel: 241862

Douglas Sheil
IUCN, Regional Office for Eastern Africa
PO Box 68200
Nairobi
                                  
Moses Kakoi
ACTS
P.O. Box 45917
Nairobi
Tel: 744047 / 744095
                                  
Anders Nilsson
Swedish Society for Nature Conservation
PO Box 4625
S-11691 Stockholm
Sweden
Tel: 46-8-702-6582; Fax: 46-8-702-0855


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