Community Autonomy and the Maya ICBG Project in Chiapas, Mexico: How a Bioprospecting Project that Should Have Succeeded Failed

The Biodiversity Discourse: Categorisation of Indigenous People in a Mexican Bio-prospecting Case

“…Natural medicine is considered important in Mexico, especially by indigenous communities, which are well-known for their knowledge of local plants that they use daily for food and medicine (Berlin and Berlin 2004). This type of knowledge is of interest to the pharmaceutical industry, since it is related to their research agenda.…”

“…The ICGB-Maya 6 project was initiated in 1998 as a cooperative venture between the Mexican University El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), the English biotechnological firm Molecular Nature Limited (MLN) and the University of Georgia in the United States (Berlin and Berlin 2004;Duomulin 2003;RAFI 1999). One of the main goals of the ICBG programme was to "promote sustained economic growth in developing countries while conserving the biological resources from which these products are derived" (National Institutes of Health, 1993, in Berlin and Berlin 2004, p. 474).…”

“…An element that makes bioprospecting agreements with indigenous people highly complicated is that the same biological resources and the same traditional knowledge stretch beyond single communities. When ICBG-Maya entered into agreements with some indigenous communities they were thus criticised for violating the rights of neighbouring communities with the same resources and knowledge (Berlin and Berlin 2004). It was argued that the resources and knowledge also belonged to indigenous communities in Guatemala, and accessagreements thus became an issue of transnational concern.…”

Sustainability or Colonialism? Legislative obstacles to research and development of natural products and patents on traditional knowledge in Brazil

“…The proposal was to discover and develop drugs and other useful agents from natural products in developing countries, promoting sustainable economic growth while preserving the biological resources from which these products were extracted (Lewis 2003;Berlin & Berlin 2004;Rosenthal et al 1999).…”

“…In the case of the Maya ICBG-Chiapas, Mexico, the project had a major component for technology transfer, which was committed to reversing the current paradigm that developing countries should send raw materials to developed countries for scanning and running pharmacological tests (Berlin & Berlin 2004). The project failed due to a NGO's representation which withdrew the autonomy of communities that had agreed to participate in an international partnership for the discovery of new drugs.…”