BIOPIRACY Imitations Not Innovations - Biopirateria

20 Biopiracy: Imitations Not Innovations
undertaken in a few states.
Gene Campaign has undertaken documentation of IK of biodiversity in
various parts of the country in order to establish prior art to challenge biopiracy
and to secure the rights of local communities to a share in the benefits derived
from the commercial use of biological resources using IK. The documentation
aims at establishing and placing on record the body of knowledge that exists in
the public domain. Also, this is done to ensure that this knowledge and the
biological resources are the property of the indigenous people. Placing and
establishing the source of this knowledge as that belonging to the indigenous
communities will be the strongest evidence against the patent claims made by
the corporate sector and also prevent private companies from exploiting the
knowledge of the indigenous communities without paying them anything in
return. It is important to establish their claim to a share in the profits made
from different products like herbal drugs, cosmetics etc. which use indigenous
knowledge. Gene Campaign has documented biodiversity and IK in Jharkhand,
Madhya Pradesh and Uttaranchal. The work was focussed on three tribal
populations: the Mundas in Jharkhand; the Bhils of Madhya Pradesh; and the
Tharus of the Terai region of Uttaranchal. The Department of Science and
Technology of the Indian Government supported the documentation. A large
number of villages were covered in the documentation exercise. For example, 50
villages of the Tharu community of Uttaranchal were included. The fieldwork
was carried out by trained members of the community. In addition to a
standardized, structured questionnaire, techniques such as semi-structured
questionnaires, informal interviews and group discussions were used for the
collection of data. Group discussions exclusively for women were also conducted.
In some villages it was found that the women were more curious and enthusiastic
about the documentation work than their male counterparts.
Each community has been assured that the data would remain their property
and its misuse would not be permitted. Only the community itself would have
the power to grant permission for commercial use of the IK contained in the
documents. The data is presently being kept in the safe custody of the
Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, but this does not
confer ownership on the Department or the Government. This has been done
to ensure that this documentation does not end up facilitating biopiracy in the
absence of legal protection to such data under the national legislation of India
with the Biological Diversity Act being also inadequate in this respect.
Gene Campaign has also conducted a survey in selected locations in Assam
with the purpose of documenting bioresources and indigenous knowledge to