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 The Biodiversity Convention signed by 144 countries, at ECO 92,
held in Rio de Janeiro, has established that if a company uses
plants, animals, genetic material or traditional knowledge of a country,
it has to pay royalties of between 3 to 5 percent.
The great majority of the countries, however, never ratified that document.
By Ana Paula Corazza
Bio-piracy is just another one of the threats the Amazon has to face since Brazil's
colonization period. It emerged in the last 30 years as a consequence of the development
of a new line of science, the biotechnology. Differing from the prospectors and smugglers,
the bio-pirates don't carry guns, but act mixing up with the tourists who arrive everyday
in order to see the beauty of the forest. Their interest, of course, is not in the rain
forest tourism, but it's based in the chance of making a great amount of money with the
species of plants and animals found exclusively in Brazilian territory.
The Amazon has been inhabited since immemorial times. When the first European
colonizers arrived in the XVI century, a few million Indians lived in the region. While
the Amazon occupation started around the year 1540, until the end of the Second World War,
the human presence in that environment didn't cause a considerable change to the natural
vegetation and fauna. A new period started when the Brazilian government decided to use
these lands for agriculture and immigrant settlement.
With 5.033.072 km2 of area in Brazil and being the home of 50 percent of the
world's biodiversity, the Amazon is a natural target to the action of companies and bio
smugglers interested in researching and exploring it with profitable purposes.
Covering 6 percent of the earth surface, the rain forests of the world concentrate half
of the living beings on the globe. Of the 240,000 species of plants with flowers, for
instance, 150,000 are in the tropics. Of these, 55,000 are in Brazilian territory, many
can only be found here. Besides it all, the Amazon rain forest is house of 24 percent of
the primate species, 23 percent of the amphibious, 30 percent of all the superior plants,
more than 300 species of mammals, 2000 of fish and 2.5 million of anthropoids.
In this ocean of life, sail the biological plunderers. Accordingly to general Germano
Arnold Pedrozo, of the Military Command of the Amazon, in a testimony to the National
Congress of Brazil in 1997, the bio-pirates arrive with tourist visas, under the
protection of international environmental NGOs or religious missions.
It's not easy to catch them. For less than $250 per day, anyone can rent a boat in
Manaus city and adventure through the immense labyrinth of the region's rivers. And with
hundreds of illegal airports and 12,000 kilometers of border guarded by only about 22,000
military soldiers, it's impossible to avoid the come and go of smugglers.
Agents of the Ibama (Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos
Renováveis—Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Resources) have
learned from the Indian and the catalog a French company left with them, the price insects
can cost in the international market. A beetle of the species Titanus giganteus,
for example, can be worth $1,000 if sold to collectors.
Police suspects that the responsible for the distribution of the catalog is a Belgian,
Robert van der Merghel, arrested in August 1997 carrying 200 beetles and butterflies at
the airport of the city of Tefé, in the Alto Solimões. Merghel was sentenced to one year
in prison but stayed only six months and was released through the intercession of the
President.
Another responsible for illegal trades is an Austrian naturalized Brazilian, Ruedger
von Reininghaus, president of the Ecological Association of the Alto Juruá, a
non-governmental organization. Ruedger was looking for people interested in buying the
secrets of medicinal plants of the Indians of the Acre State. He escaped from justice only
because of the lack of proof against him.
It's crystal clear that the two outlaws were amateurs in an activity in which the most
common professionals show off their master and doctor in science titles. And feel as
comfortable in a research lab as in the middle of the jungle.
But masters and doctors in science alone cannot be blamed for taking samples of animals
and plants to other countries, according to Ozório José de M. Fonseca, former director
of Inpa (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisa da Amazônia—National Institute of Research
of the Amazon). In an article written to the Amazonas em Tempo newspaper, he talks
about the importance of researching and studying animals, plants and microorganisms in the
Amazon in order to improve mankind's quality of life. He also stresses that serious
researchers are not getting the necessary support and suggests that it is necessary to
search for national and international agreements.
"The development of projects based on agreements allows the training of Brazilian
scientists and researchers, making possible the sharing of knowledge, technology and new
materials between the partners that can legally patent their discoveries", writes
Fonseca. "The material that leaves the research institutions is closely
inspected", adds Fonseca, "but one thing we don't know is the name of the heads
of civil institutions that have its people coming and going in the Amazon or the pastors
and priests who live in traditional communities in the forest collecting information and
maybe material that can easily leave the country through its wide hydrographic net".
For Fonseca the only way to avoid the harm of illegal exploration of the Amazon is to
research and patent first every product of biological origin. And put pressure on the
government convincing the nations in the world to sign a treaty forbidding any product
with biological source to be patented before its origin is absolutely clarified.
Making a fortune
In 1965, physician and researcher Sérgio Ferreira, from the University of São Paulo
(USP), discovered a substance in the poison of the jararaca snake responsible for a
high decrease in blood pressure of people who are beaten by this snake. Patented by the
Wellcome laboratory, the substance originated a line of anti-high blood pressure medicines
that brings $40 billion per year in income.
Brazil hasn't received anything for the discovery. The pharmacist and researcher
Evandro de Araújo Silva of the Universidade da Amazônia (University of the Amazon)
explains why it is so hard to produce medicines in the country: "In the '40s, the
cost until the launching of a new medicine was $40 million. Today its cost is around $500
million and might go as high as $1 billion soon".
Ever since the first gene was isolated, in 1973, genetic engineering has experienced a
spectacular progress, creating a market for the major companies in the
chemistry-pharmaceutical, agricultural and medicinal areas. And the impact of these
changes is only in the beginning. In the next decades, new products will invade peoples
every day life, generating business of incalculable value. In the middle of these new
discoveries we find an unexplored new world, where life is a precious valuable good not
only in the philosophic-legal point of view but also in economic matters.
Patents over these products will be huge sources of fortunes now in the 21st
century. The Biodiversity Convention signed by 144 countries, at ECO 92, held in Rio de
Janeiro, has established that if a company uses plants, animals, genetic material or
traditional knowledge of its country population, royalties between 3 percent and 5 percent
over the products sales will have to be paid to that country. The great majority of the
countries, however, haven't ratified that document.
To put things in perspective:
One single North-American company has catalogued over 7000 Amazon plants without paying
a cent for it.
Blood and DNA samples of native Indians Karitianas and Suruís of the State of
Rondônia are sold to foreign countries.
Frogs, snakes, scorpions and other poisonous animals are extremely valuable to
biotechnological researches due to the toxins they produce and distil. In January 1998,
researchers of the Abbot laboratory, one of the giants in the chemistry-pharmaceutical
sector, announced the synthesis of a new composition, the ABT-694, made through the toxin
found in the skin of the Amazon frog, Epipadobates tricolor. According to the Abbot
scientists, the ABT-694 might become the first of a family of analgesics for pain, able to
substitute the opium derivates.
With the development of genetic engineering, there is no doubt the bio-piracy will
continue to increase. And, despite the disagreement among scientists and foreign parties
on the research agreement, at least in one point they all agree: Brazil needs to take
place in the vast biodiversity heritage of the Amazon, invest in research and do it before
others do.
That the Amazon Forest is an immense lab on open air we all agree. But it is important
to find a point of agreement on how to explore its richness in a way mankind can enjoy the
benefits of the new discoveries and at the same time respect the laws, borders and rights
of the people who live in the Amazon and in throughout the country.
The Amazon in our lives
Most of us don't know that several products that we use in everyday life come from the
Amazon. Here are some of them:
· British company Body Shop buys Brazil nuts' oil, extracted by the Caiapó Indians
and uses it to make skin creams and shampoos.
· American company Aveda produces cosmetics using the urucum, a vegetal
bleaching.
· The vegetal leather used to make Hermès purses is a result of the work of the
Kaxinawá and Yawanawá tribes of the Acre state.
· The shampoo of the Amazon babaçu from L'Oreal is a sale success in Paris.
· The sophisticated perfume Channel No. 5 has in its formula the pau-rosa
(rosewood). This tree is in the list of the "becoming extinct".
· The seat head support of the Mercedes-Benz trucks is made of Amazon coconut fiber.
· The active substance of Flaxedil, a muscle relaxing medicine, is based on a solution
made by the Indians from vegetal extracts.
Ana Paula Corazza, a 25-year-old journalism student, born in São Paulo
city but living in Rio de Janeiro for two years, has worked as translator and writer at
some Brazilian publications. You can reach her at acorazza@hotmail.com
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