Union minister of commerce P Chidambaram's statementRaiva Sabha, that a multi- disciplinary committee has beenup'by the government to prepare a regulatory frameworkimplementing the biodiversity convention in India, hadlike a glimmer of light at the end of a dark tunnel.
The need for such a body can hardly be overstressed. The ention, which seeks to protect the world's genetic rux.,Ln:es of plants and animals, upholds the sovereign rights Va nation over its natural resources. In other words, the rul government has full authority to set up structured nLsms to negotiate trading of its plants and germplasms. i-ne honourable minister's announcement raised hopes titans who walk the corridors of power have at last to the fact that something needs to be done to stop, illu-pt control, the indiscriminate culling of our biological meowurr-trove by foreigners - be it scientists from prestigious institutions or agents of multinational companies.
Butthe euphoria was shortlived. Chidambaram's state-setmed to have thrown his ministry in a state of comSm-ilderment. Any attempt made to secure more inforon this much-awaited committee was equivalent toone.s head against the wall. None of the senior offiam- c prepared to comment on it.
Wor4m er, while pursuing the issue, the represenhe Centre for Science and Environmenton to an astounding fact. She was that the committee has been in operationiw rwo years, and that it consists of a panelcomprising scientists, environmentalists,and economists. But the exact details:V Provided immediately as they had to beform files.
hr :: " :omforting to know that a team ofkwwt @ccn keeping a vigil on the outflow ofM re-A)-urces, it is rather disconcerting toa dkv functions have, quite inexplicably,pv=m&v wraps. Why was not the public keptdibow dw regulatory programmes that thispm9wwd to undertake, or perhaps hasJApe*W_ Surely, they had a right to know!b6fiow. and the indigenous communities gwwvsrr4 improved and developed the resources for mmad on whose behalf the government is supposed 1p6mw# m the first place.Ow we grasp the significance of such committees.ft *t 0obal context, they have a tremendouslya wit to pL&,6- Importantiy so in the case of thelndk South- The world's biodiversity exists mainly inL&Kht'd awal- in its tropical forests, wildlands andbw *t era. it has been appopriated by theNorthern agricultural systems and later, by the multinationalbiotech industries. And it has been acquired free of cost.
It is only as late as in the '70s that the developing countriesbegan to realise the mindboggling scale of such biologicalappropriation. And they began to assert their claim, their rightto exploit and benefit from the resources they have sopainstakingly conserved. The world community was also sensitised to the extent of deprivation suffered by the indigenouscommunities, the farmers and the tribals. The corporategiants, who do not just collect plants but also pinchtraditional knowledge from the local people, patent thebio-materials and reap enormous profits from it, while thefarmer's non-patentable contributions in identifying andcultivating plant varieties remain largely ignored.
Now, however, their contribution has been formallyrecognised in international fora. The governments of the concerned nations now shoulder the responsibility of playing the role of a watchdog, to ensure that the indigenous communities are no longer taken for a ride.
Therefore, government-sponsored committees such as theone under discussion are supposed to be acting as negotiatorson behalf of the people. Their activities should be made astransparent as possible, so that the people too get toparticipate in the process of negotiation. And if thecommittee has really been functioning for the lasttwo years, it appears to have achieved precious littleduring the period. We can take the neern plant as atest case to prove this point. Within the span of threeto four years, a deluge of patents have been issued onthe extracts of neem, and 90 per cent of the patentholders are multinational companies. The companies have been making a neat packet by developing on the traditional knowledge of our farmers,but no visible initiative has been taken by our government to ensure that there is at least some reverse flow of profits.
The importance of appointing an expert teamfor monitoring the trade of genetic resources isfurther enhanced by the fact that our legal systemhardly provides any protection on this front. Andthe miserably inadequate Indian patent law ishamstrung, goes back and forth in Parliament, while theso-called representatives of the people still fail to agree on acommon format.
So, it is high time that our ministers took a more in-depthview of the issue, followed by decisive action. Or else, asDarrell Posey, the eminent ethnobiologist puts it, "mining ofthe riches of indigenous knowledge will become the latest andultimate neo-colonial form of exploitation of indigenous peoples."