Politics of Biopiracy: An Adventure Into Hoodia/Xhoba Patenting in Southern Africa

Abstract

Background: Africa is being described as the wretched of the earth, despite this, the continent is endowed with natural resources, dynamic ecosystem, and different species of plants and animals, and species derivatives. This paper area of departure is to focus on Hoodia, a plant that is being a source of food, medicine and water for the San and Khoe indigenous peoples before the advent of Europeans into southern Africa. South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) dubiously patented Hoodia without observing the basic indices of geographical indications (GIs), indigenous knowledge (IK), novelty, access sharing benefit (ASB), prior informed consent (PIC) and sustainability of ecosystem before the rights was sold to Phytopharm pharmaceutical company. Materials and methods:This article adopts neoliberal thesis with emphasis on complex interdependence theory of organic linkages between developing and developed countries. Secondary sources of information taken into account of qualitative and critical discuss content analyses dominate this paper. Result: The paper recommends a linkage between developed and developing states based on endowment theory and comparative advantage with the notion of adhering to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which has three objectives: the conservation of biodiversity; the sustainable utilisation of indigenous biological resources (IBR); and fair and equitable benefit sharing. Conclusion: The paper recommends that there is a need to follow CBD and other relevant international regimes that promote equal exchange in exploitation of Africa resources as against the present skewed arrangement that is in favour of multinational corporations (MNCs).

Routledge Handbook of Gender and Agriculture

“…The ways in which this scientific authority and legitimacy has been pursued, articulated, and secured has also taken place through colonialism (Hamilton et al, 2017, p. 614), the privatization of genetic resources (Hutchings, 2002;Hutchings et al, 2007;Cram et al, 2000;Santos, 2008;LaDuke, 2005;Cummings, 2008;Fitting, 2011), and customary or traditional knowledge (Amusan, 2017). These processes by which scientific, corporate, and state actors colonize the genetic resources of people of color and indigenous people have been termed "biopiracy" (Shiva et al, 1998), "bioprospecting" (Greene, 2004;Rixecker and Tipene-Matua 2003), "biocolonialism" (Whitt, 1998;Goldberg-Hiller and Silva, 2015), and, more recently, "molecular imperialism" (Bonneil et al, 2014).…”

“…Scholars have been critical about the benefits of GE technologies to different indigenous communities, highlighting the specific struggles between commercial and scientific actors over genetic resources and the politics of knowledge surrounding their development. In particular, indigenous groups across the world have been concerned with the commercial use, patenting, and planned genetic modification of seeds and plant varieties, including the wild rice of the Ojibwe (LaDuke, 2005), the maize of indigenous peoples in Mexico (Fitting, 2011), the taro plant for Native Hawaiians (Ritte et al, 2007;Guggagnig, 2017) and the hoodia plant of the San people of South Africa (Amusan, 2017), among others.…”

Traditional Leadership, Indigenous Knowledge, and Local Governance: Implications for Good Governance and Sustainable Development Agenda

“…One of the major age-long African socio-cultural heritage is traditional medicine. Africans and their traditional leaders have been practising and utilising this traditional approach to health [50]. They have equally passed it among generation to solve their health and medical challenges before the advent of conventional or orthodox medicine.…”

Implications of Land Grabbing and Resource Curse for Sustainable Development Goal 2 in Africa: Can Globalization Be Blamed?

“…Africa is currently not food sovereign and cannot adequately feed its populations despite being labeled the raw materials continent. Hunger still exists in Africa, despite the fact that it is home to valuable raw materials or natural resources [38]. This brings to the fore the importance of this article, which tries to examine how land grabs (legal acquisition of land for development, speculation, and commodification) and resource curses (i.e., hunger amid massive abundances of raw materials that can be used to grow food) undermine Africa's quest to achieve SDG 2.…”