bwanika wanted to share the following link with you: http://www.africasia.com/newafrican/na.php?ID=253
They added this message: The new scramble for Africa by Push Commey Africa is losing billions of dollars through the filching of the continent’s biodiversity by powerful Western companies and individuals. Here, we unearth how the stealing from Africa of centuries old indigenous knowledge of local resources (plants, herbs, seeds, livestock germ, etc), is increasingly becoming the new scramble for Africa. Pusch Commey reports. Even though the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, ratified by 183 countries, recognises the sovereignty of countries over their genetic and biological resources, the absence of laws against this theft has unfortunately left Africa open to bio-exploitation. To make the theft even more difficult to control, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has since 1985 required its member states, including those in Africa, to comply with the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement. In essence, TRIPs causes a discrepancy between patent legislation and protection of indigenous knowledge. Angry campaigners against biopiracy complain that TRIPs only serves the interest of developed countries and does not help indigenous communities in Africa or traditional knowledge holders. International law sets out that an invention can only qualify for patent only if it is new and includes a resourceful action. But in reality, that is not what exits in the West where patent laws appear to have been designed to exploit developing countries. It is a familiar story. If the WTO is the mother of all chicanery, then TRIPs is the son. TRIPs facilitates the organised theft of the resources of developing countries. It has been going on for sometime, and biopiracy is the name of the game. -------------------------------------------- This service is hosted on the Infocom network http://www.infocom.co.ug
