Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Ch. 3 Bioprospecting
- Plants - effort - transformation
- Eg. Aspirin - Salicylic acid
- Explore the way people are
entangled with biophysical aspects
of the planet in a neo-liberal system
(p. 109)
- From wikipedia: the process of
discovery and commercialisation of
new products based on biological
resouces. Typically in less developed
countries.
- Cinchona
travelled from
Peru to Java
- Plant imperialism:
possible thanks to Wardian
case to transport plants,
- Kew Gardens became the territory
where the plants were stored,
botanical garden
Anmerkungen:
- Like Tuvalu an island and states or Financial Centres like Wall street or city of London are territories where the flows intertwine.
- Wardian case was
the technology
used to transport
plants from exotic
places to UK .
- TERRITORIALISATION or
making of territories are
constructed, with boundaries
and borders
- "Social and Spatial dynamics" of
collection Parry: the ability for a group
to access, acquire, monopolise
materials and consequent creation of
inequalities bw. those who have athose
who havent's (p. 119)
- Plant imperialism and
globalisation are put on
the same level. Like
bioprospecting (p. 143)
- In order to make bioprospecting
profitable territorialisation is made
through commodification
- Contains quinine an
anti-malarian substance
- helped European empires
expand in parts where malaria
was strong like parts of Africa
- Biodiversity: biological
diversity: genetic, species and
habitat diversity (p. 121)
- In the 80s biologists and
conservationists used the
term, E.O. Wilson to draw
attention to loss of species on
the planet
- Neo-liberalists argue that
biodiversity should be
privatised in order to
preserve it. Free market
environmentalism. Nature
should be commercialised (p. 121)
- 1987: Brundtland Report, UN
commission on sustainable
development p.121)
- UN Convention on Biological Diversity
Anmerkungen:
- It's the most important global architechture on how bioprospecting is organised. 1992 (p. 122)
- It is agreed that non humans
species should be preserved by
humans by policy makers,
conservationists. biologists etc.
- Notion that plants can be profitable!
- Pharmaceutical world
- 1994 Prof. Lewis worked on funded
project of Peruvian medical plant
source based on knowledge by local
people, conserving biodiversity and
collaborating with indigenous people
(p125)
- Brandt Commission - North - South
divide, distribution of wealth and
sharing of agriculture and proposing
change between the rich North part
of the world and the South, Brandt
Report 1980
- Global
commodification of
biological materials
- Transformation of plants into drugs by
the pharma companies, need to provide
benefits in return of the acquisition of
the plants (p128)
- Creating medicinals from
plants involves all sorts of
flows (p129)
- Technical work required to
tranform the territory (or plants)
genetic code into pharmacological
testing (p. 133 diagram)
- Transformation of
biological material into
information known as
territorialisation (p 134)
- Transformation of biological
material into property is
another form of
territorialisation or
decontectualising activity (
p142)
- ICBG-Peru: Aguaruna people, case
study, problems acknoledging royalty
rights. Dutfield agreement settled that
recognising a 0.5% of future sales to the
Fund for the developemnet of
Indigenous Peoples
- RAFI got involved
- Return to nature and benefit sharing
regimes for poorer countries where
the plants grow, global biodiversity
(p129)
- One size fit it
all, neo-liberal
approach
- CBD Convention on
biological diversity Rio
1992
- Biopiracy: when knowledge of other
cultures is taken freely and patented into
"intellectual property", making a profit. The
people whose knowledge it was and the
public then have to pay royalties for seeds
and medicines produced by big corporations
(p. 140)
- Bioprospecting: Should be responsible to all humans involved, to
non-humans and the planet. To indigenous peoples their
customes, language not to be lost (p. 145) opposed to CBD
one size fit it all.
- Parry suggested that pharma
companies allocate bw. 3-5 % of
profit ratio to the South for those
products developed on the
indigenous peoples who had that
knowledge in the first place.
- The key transformations in bioprospecting show an
interplay btw. territory and flow, making a
globalised world ( p. 149)