November 2001 - Nr. 11
Bonn Hosts UN Conference on Genetic Resources
TWIG - Representatives from 180 countries gathered in Bonn this week to set goals for regulating the use of genetic information. The five-day conference was called to help implement the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and Genetic Resources, which treats the genetic components of plants and animals as natural resources.
New guidelines are needed to protect the interests of developing countries when genetic resources are shared, stressed Gila Altmann of the Federal Ministry of the Environment in opening the conference Monday (October 22). Organizations that use genetic information, such as pharmaceutical and agricultural firms, should be required to compensate source countries, whether financially, through technology or in joint research and development projects. Trade in genetic resources is a fact, and it is developing a dynamic of its own, said Altmann. The problem is how to keep it from spinning out of control.
Private contracts that give companies rights to genetic information pose risks to the environment as well as the economies of developing countries, critics say. In a protest demonstration that took place during the conference, the international environmental organization Greenpeace warned developing countries not to give in to "biopiracy." Activists have accused the biotechnology firm Monsanto of applying for a patent on a soybean variety that grows naturally in China. If granted, the patent would give Monsanto a monopoly on the plant itself, its seeds and the growing methods used to produce the variety, Greenpeace maintains.
Ulrike Hoefken, the Green party representative for agricultural policy in the Bundestag, argued international controls should be introduced to prevent such situations. "We want a globalization of opportunities, not a divvying up of the markets among rich countries and large firms," said Hoefken. Hamdallah Zedan, director of the UN convention, called for cooperation between industrial countries and the developing world to give both sides a share in resources and the benefits they might bring.
