Farmers' rights and protection of traditional agricultural knowledge:

"Although achieving in situ conservation is possible without changing farmers' customary management of crops as common pool resources, an alternative approach is to negotiate a bioprospecting contract with providers of the resource that involves direct payment and royalties. This bioprospecting mechanism implies a change in the customary treatment of crop genetic resources as common pool goods and is in line with national ownership mandated by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This paper questions the value of bioprospecting for protecting traditional agricultural knowledge and argues for a common pool approach. It examines the nature of crop genetic resources and farmers' knowledge about them, and it analyzes the nature of the ‘common heritage' regime that was partly dismantled by the Convention on Biological Diversity. The paper reviews the implementation of access and benefit sharing schemes under the CBD and discusses programs to recognize Farmers' Rights that have arisen since the establishment of the CBD. It concludes with recommendations for meeting the Farmers' Rights mandate of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture." Author's AbstractEast Africa, africa south of sahara, Biological diversity conservation, Collective action, Bioprospecting,

Traditional Knowledge and Biodiversity in South Africa : CSIR case

The focus of this paper is traditional knowledge (TK) and indigenous biological resources protection in South Africa, through the analysis of the existing policies and legislations, in order to provide a useful insight for a developed country such as Japan which has recently adopted the guidelines for the protection of TK and biological resources and promotion of access and benefit sharing (ABS). South Africa is the 3rd most diverse country in terms of natural resources, culture and traditions, languages and geology and its comprehensive legislative framework system shows the country\u27s seriousness to safeguard TK and conserve biological resources for future generations. The paper uses the South Africa\u27s government owned research and technology development institution, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), as an example to demonstrate the application of the TK protection and biodiversity conservation (including access and benefit sharing) laws, through case studies approach for lessons learned for other African countries, contemplating creation of their own TK protection and environmental conservation. Due to the repositioning of CSIR within the local and global research and develop, the organisation has adopted Industrialisation Strategy, and TK will play a significant role in technology development and new business models in rural agroprocessing and production to enhance inclusive development (through benefit sharing) and support economic growth. The paper concludes that TK and indigenous biological resources protection through the relevant government laws, as well as value addition to TK and biodiversity through research and development supported by government funding, is necessary for socioeconomic attainment, especially for local and indigenous communities and rural agroprocessing businesses as part of benefit sharing

Search, bioprospecting, and biodiversity conservation

To what extent can private-sector bioprospecting incentives be relied upon for the protection of biological diversity? The literature contains dramatically different estimates of these incentives from trivial to quite large. We resolve this controversy by isolating the fundamental source of the discrepancy and then providing empirically defensible estimates based on that analysis. Results demonstrate that the bioprospecting incentive is unlikely to generate much private-sector conservation. Thus, other mechanisms are likely required to preserve the public good of biodiversity.Bioprospecting, biodiversity, conservation, efficient search, information

An Economic Model for Bioprospecting Contracts

This paper explores the use of a micro-economic model to analyse the provisions and parties of bioprospecting contracts. It focuses on the pharmaceutical industry as the representative biodiversity buyer, presenting an original theoretical framework that explains the main contract characteristics or stylised facts. Against this background, it considers the main contractors involved in these private contracts, i.e. biodiversity sellers and biodiversity buyers, analysing both the magnitude and distribution of the respective payoffs. Particular attention is devoted to the different, mixed impacts of bioprospecting contracts and patenting on social welfare. The positive welfare impacts delivered by bioprospecting contracts are associated with the potential discovery of a new drug product, i.e. productivity gains, non-monetary benefit-sharing or transfers and royalty revenues. The negative welfare impact results from the legal creation of a monopoly and the related well-known effect on the consumer surplus. Finally, the potential redistribution effects are limited, and a potential enforcement of this objective may jeopardise the desirability of the contracts since this action would lead to a significant increase in the transaction costs.Bioprospecting Contract, Genetic Resource, Biodiversity Buyer, Biodiversity Seller, Patenting, Welfare Analysis, Benefit Sharing

Access to and use of marine genetic resources : understanding the legal framework

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. Acknowledgements This work was supported by the PharmaSea project funded by the EU Seventh Framework Programme, and reects only the authors' views. Contract number 312184. www.pharma-sea.eu.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Horses as Sources of Proprietary Information: Commercialization, Conservation, and Compensation Pursuant to the Convention on Biological Diversity

Horses indigenous to East and Southeast (E/SE) Asia, including native, landrace, feral, and wild populations, embody valuable genetic diversity. Conservation efforts for animals have largely been driven by humane altruism, with little consideration for the information value of genomes. Yet, if horses are viewed as archives of information as well as objects of affection, their conservation shifts to a market-based paradigm. Horse genetic resources (GR) likely contain significant value to the lucrative global horse industry, including veterinary applications such as diagnostics, therapeutics, genetic markers, gene therapies, and cloning technologies. As biotechnology becomes increasingly sophisticated, mining of horse GR will accelerate, thus facilitating identification, inventorying, bioprospecting, and commercialization of genetic information. Yet, establishing a value chain that balances equitable compensation for commercial applications while promoting conservation of horse populations remains a challenge. Recommendations presented here include establishing regional and national human resource and institutional capacity (competent national authorities), that catalog eco-geographical inventories of horse GR; monitor, manage, market and direct equitable value chains from horse to genetic information to commercial products; and ensure revenue flow back to support conservation. This system will foster market incentives to build capacity for sustainable conservation of the diverse horse populations of E/SE Asia

Is the Value of Bioprospecting Contracts Too Low?

In order to regulate the proliferated bioprospecting and protect the biological diversity in the source countries, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) established a legal framework for the reciprocal transfer of biological materials between the interested parties in bioprospecting activities, subject to the Prior Informed Content (PIC) principles and a set of mutually agreed items on equitable sharing of benefits (CBD 1992, Bhat 1999; Ten Kate and Laird 1999; Dedeurwaerdere 2005). Although interesting and valuable to the cause of conservation, there is a feeling that the ‘price’ being paid under these arrangements is too low. Somehow ecologists argue that, surely, these materials have a greater value than the few million dollars being paid to national conservation organizations for the protection of the areas where the material are located. In this paper we seek to understand better how a biodiversity resource’ use value in production is determined, and how the real value is obscured by the fact that the resource is largely open access. We attempt to analyse how special arrangements, set op top of a basic framework in which the resource open access is limited in what it can achieve and in the ‘price’ that will emerge from any transaction between the buyers of the rights and the sellers of the rights.Access and Benefit Sharing, Convention for Biological Diversity, Bioprospecting Contract, Genetic Resource, Open Access and Welfare Analysis

Implications of Uncertainty and Spillovers for Access and Benefit Sharing Agreements

One of the objectives of the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity is to create access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing (ABS) systems that incorporate the environmental, social, and economic aspects of sustainable development. Under the Convention, governments have sovereignty over their genetic resources but also the responsibility of using them sustainably. This provision is particularly relevant for biologically-abundant developing countries as it offers a direct means of reducing the financial pressures against conservation of ecosystems and natural habitats, particularly in light of recent. This paper examines the impacts of a benefit-sharing system involving royalties and governmental ownership of genetic resources in a two-firm research and development (R&D) market with uncertainty and information spillovers. Royalties are shown to reduce the research output of the taxed firm, which results in much lower expected government revenues when the research output of a competing rm is a strategic subsitute relative to when it is a strategic complement. Further, taxation alone is generally inferior to a combination of taxation/subsidization of successful products and research costs. The paper shows that subsidization rather than taxation of successful products may even be optimal under particular types of uncertainty.Biodiversity prospecting; research and development (R&D); uncertainty; spillovers; imperfect competition.

Scientific evaluation of deterioration of historic huts of Ross Island, Antarctica

There are many challenges facing conservation of the historic huts in Antarctica including non-biological, biological and environmental impacts explains Professor Roberta L. Farrell, Department of Biological Sciences, the University of Waikato. The article presents a discussion of historical huts of Ross Island, Antarctica

Application of the war of attrition game to the analysis of intellectual property disputes

In many developing countries intellectual property infringement and the commerce of pirate goods is an entrepreneurial activity. Digital piracy is very often the only media for having access to music, cinema, books and software. At the same time, bio-prospecting and infringement of indigenous knowledge rights by international consortiums is usual in places with high biodiversity. In these arenas transnational actors interact with local communities. Accusations of piracy often go both ways. This article analyzes the case of southeast Mexico. Using a war of attrition game theory model it explains different situations of intellectual property rights piracy and protection. It analyzes different levels of interaction and institutional settings from the global to the very local. The article proposes free IP zones as a solution of IP disputes. The formation of technological local clusters through Free Intellectual Property Zones (FIPZ) would allow firms to copy and share de facto public domain content for developing new products inside the FIPZ. Enforcement of intellectual property could be pursuit outside of the FIPZ. FIPZ are envisioned as a new type of a sui generis intellectual property regime