The Global Quest for Green Gold: Implications of Bioprospecting and Patenting for Indigenous Bioresources and Knowledge

Abstract

The article focuses on the commoditisation and appropriation of indigenous bioresources and knowledge under bioprospecting, as facilitated by the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). TRIPS has not only broadened the scope for patenting, including patenting of life forms, but also threatened to appropriate and not acknowledge contributions of indigenous communities. There is an asymmetrical economic and legal relationship between communities in the global South and corporates in the global North mediated by a host of institutions, including the states, with their own agendas. The promise of the patenting system is spurring the race for collecting bioresources and knowledge through bioprospecting agreements. As databases of plants used by indigenous communities are established, biological parks are created to sequester regions rich in genetic resources and profits are disproportionately distributed, bioprospecting agreements appear to have heralded a new kind of expropriation. The article critically analyses the ramifications of bioprospecting and subsequent patenting on indigenous community ownership rights over bioresources and knowledge. It also examines indigenous resistance; how communities have asserted their rights to culture as a property against corporate interventions.