Subject: Gene Campaign

GENE CAMPAIGN DEMANDS LAW TO PROTECT BIO-RESOURCES
Gene Campaign, the group spearheading the movement for protecting India`s
bio-diversity from foreign patents and is fighting against bio-piracy, has
demanded the immediate enactment of a law for establishing sovereign rights
over the country`s biological resources. ''We have prepared a draft bill
together with the Forum for Biotechnology and presented it to the President
with a request to issue an ordinance to bring this law into force as soon as
possible,`` Ms Suman Sahai, national convenor of Gene Campaign, told
reporters here on Sunday. The draft bill was also submitted to the Union
ministers for Agriculture and Environment and Forest for action, she said.
The draft specified that local communities had rights over all the biological
wealth and indigenous knowledge available in the country while according
greatest importance to the role of indigenous knowledge, Dr Sahai said.
Knowledge is technology and knowledge/technology required for producing a
life-saving drug from a medicinal plant in the forest is of far greater value
than the technology, for instance, of producing chrome steel, she said.
Justifying the reasons for treating local knowledge as technology, Dr Sahai
said payment for the use of indigenous knowledge and Indian bio-resources
should not be received by individual communities, but by a national community
gene and technology fund. All rural and tribal communities could have access
to the money collected in this fund for use in their areas, whether related
to conservation of bio-resources or other things, she said. Dr Sahai
explained that the legislation they had proposed suggested that an autonomous
national bio-resource authority should be set up to formulate policy and
regulate the use of bio-resources. The bio-diversity draft bill stipulated
that funding for the national authority should be in accordance with the law
but should not come from any foreign sources including multilateral donor
agencies, she said.
FWD FROM PTI/DECCAN HERALD SEPT 8, 1997