Anti-suppressants, treatment for diabetes, antibiotics, anti-fungals, infection fighters and vaccines - all of these are naturally occurring in Africa, and have been used for centuries, but these practices are being threatened as Western laboratories pilfer both knowledge and resources. With the release of "Out of Africa: Mysteries of Access and Benefit Sharing," some light has been shed on the increasing trend of biopiracy across the African continent. Beth Burrows of the Edmonds Institute, a non-profit public interest group which focuses on environmental education, answered some questions from Pambazuka News about this report.

Pambazuka News: Can you define biopiracy?

Beth Burrows: As was noted in the introduction to Out of Africa, the agreed to definition for the purposes of the Out of Africa work was: "Where there is access to or acquisition of biodiversity (and/or related traditional knowledge) without prior informed consent, including prior informed consent about benefit sharing, on the part(s) of those whose biodiversity (or traditional knowledge) has been ‘accessed’ or ‘acquired’, there is biopiracy - i.e., theft."

PZN: How are the development of Africa and biopiracy related? What does sustainability have to do with protecting biodiversity?

BB: Africa has a great wealth of biodiversity. It should be able to control how that "wealth" is used and to ensure that it is always used for the benefit of the (current and future) peoples and other biodiversity of the continent. Exactly how each country and group of people envisions its own development is beyond my competence (or audacity) to say; each group would have to be asked that question for itself.

If biodiversity cannot be sustained, then clearly it will not be "protected" or available to future generations. It is likely that those who have stewarded biodiversity for centuries - the people who live with it - are the best judges of how to sustain and protect their own biodiversity.

Merely consuming biodiversity to facilitate short-term development schemes would not seem wise in terms of conservation (and future use). This was the understanding of those who created the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The treaty was meant to stand on three legs - conservation, sustainable use, and equitable sharing of benefits derived from sustainable use. As Hamdallah Zedan, former Secretary of the CBD once wrote referring to equitable sharing of benefits: "The latter objective is of particular importance to developing countries, as they hold most of the world's biological diversity but feel that, in general, they do not obtain a fair share of benefits derived from the use of their resources for the development of products such as high-yielding varieties, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Such a system reduces the incentive for the world's biologically richer but economically poorer countries to conserve and sustainable use their resources for the ultimate benefit of everyone on Earth."

PZN: What are the ethical considerations behind biopiracy, and what sort of protection is currently in place for biodiversity in Africa?

BB: The ethical considerations behind biopiracy - or, more correctly, behind the objection to biopiracy - are the same as those behind the objection to theft and disrespect and colonialism.

Whatever "protection" against biopiracy that exists in Africa would have to exist on the national level (although in some places in other parts of the world, some local communities have set their own rules of access and refused access to biodiversity for anyone not abiding by those rules). National protection would be reflected in laws on access to and benefit sharing (ABS) from biodiversity in each country. There would also have to be rules governing the recognition of the rights of indigenous and local communities to their biodiversity.

Although many countries have signed the Convention on Biological Diversity, many still do not have such ABS rules or have not implemented those they may have. Further, the CBD itself has still not agreed to binding international requirements for access and benefit sharing. (The CBD parties are in the process of negotiating such requirements right now.) Unfortunately, many of the signatories have not yet passed national laws to govern access and benefit sharing in relation to the genetic resources of the country (and that of various indigenous peoples within their countries).

PZN: What are the repercussions, both environmental and social, that occur as a result of biopiracy? How are indigenous cultures and communities denigrated when biopiracy occurs?

BB: This is a question you would have to ask each group from whom material or traditional knowledge has been taken (with permission, recognition, and/or remuneration). Not all groups would necessarily feel or think the same. Not all loss of biodiversity (or degradation or overconsumption of biodiversity) would have the same effect in every place.

In general, the human repercussions may range from a sense of having been robbed, to a sense of having been disrespected, to a sense of having been neglected altogether. Each people must decide for themselves what is the repercussion. It is not for a "non-member" to make this decision.

On the environmental level, it is also difficult to give a general answer to the question of repercussions from biopiracy. This is a subject for investigation on the national (and local level). At its worst, it is possible that biopiracy may put so much pressure on a genetic resource that it may disappear altogether from the place in which it originated. Biodiversity can become rare and expensive and finally entirely unavailable to those for whom it was once abundant and freely used.

PZN: Can you estimate, in financial terms, how much profit has been made as a result of biopiracy in Africa?

BB: No. You would have to do this research on a theft-by-theft basis. While some "thefts" may have turned out to be entirely unprofitable, others may have resulted in profits of billions. And then, of course, there is the whole problem of deciding what is "profit" and who keeps the books.

PZN: What needs to happen, at both an international and local level, to ensure that biopiracy doesn't occur? What policies need to be in place, and what do communities need to do to protect the biodiversity of their areas?

BB: At all levels, communities need to decide under what conditions they will allow access to their biodiversity and traditional knowledge. They need to have a system in place to deal with those who may come to access their biodiversity. The system should be known to everyone.

On the national level, this system must be enfolded in law, as it must on the international level where, it is hoped, a floor on ABS (access and benefit sharing) will be set (below which it is not acceptable to go). There may need to be capacity building in some places to ensure that effective laws are created and obeyed. In some parts of the world, this might mean capacity building in law. In other places, it might mean capacity building in ethics. For the system to work, academic researchers would have to understand that times have changed and the conditions under which they access biodiversity have changed as well.

Further, there would also need to be concurrent changes in patent law on the national and international level to ensure that no one gets a patent on any invention without revealing the source of any biological material used in the "invention" and without attaching a copy of the relevant access and benefit sharing agreement to the patent application. Here, I must note that it is even more complicated than I have stated. For example, many peoples find patents granted on biological materials to be unethical and undesirable; for them any ABS agreement would involve agreements not to patent the material, knowledge, or any derivatives from either.

The necessity of resolving all these many difficult issues is why the nations of the world, with a few exceptions, see the benefit of negotiating an ABS treaty in the context of the CBD.

* Interview conducted via email by Karoline Kemp, a Commonwealth of Learning Young Professional with Fahamu.

* Please send comments to