BioPiracy, Genitec engieering, Frankenfoods, Trickery, and Slavery
Doug Bashford
in: talk.environment,sci.environment
In <a4uirk$1mi$1...@localhost.lafn.org>
On 19 Feb 2002, Recycled News <ay...@extra.lafn.org> wrote about:
Alliance against biopiracy
> China, Brazil, India, 9 other nations form alliance
> against biopiracy
Ya, like we will honor their wishes! Right!
...and there is a Christian nation and a
Santa Clause too! People get what they deserve!
Bwaaaa haaa haa ha ha ha!
> Tuesday, February 19, 2002
> By Mark Stevenson, Associated Press
>
> MEXICO CITY -- China, Brazil, India, and nine other of the world's
> most biodiverse countries signed an alliance Monday to fight biopiracy
> and press for rules protecting their people's rights to genetic
> resources found on their land.
>
> The declaration -- also signed by representatives of Indonesia, Costa
> Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Kenya, Peru, Venezuela, and South Africa --
> echoed complaints long voiced by Indians and environmentalists: that
> wealthy nations are "prospecting" for species in order to patent or
> sell them without offering concessions or benefits for local people.
What a friggin joke, patenting nature.
Gee if Bill Gates cuts himself in my bathroom,
I save the blood, and I clone him, can I patent him!?
Will I own all the copies? Slavery! Whoopie!
> "Up to now, our nations have not benefited from this great wealth
> because there hasn't been an equal sharing between the nations
> involved nor with the rural and Indian groups that use and protect
> biodiversity," said Mexican Environment Secretary Victor Lichtinger.
Does one spell that "filthy greed" or "Filthy Greed"?
Well, you know, pirates work very hard, and it's not
a cheap operation to run, so they should
get to keep what ever they get, right?
> Together, the 12 nations in the alliance, which contain 70 percent of
> the world's biodiversity, said they would press for more equal trade
> rules on patenting and registering products based on plant and animal
> resources.
>
> Formed in the resort city of Cancun and formally known
> as the Group of Allied Mega-Biodiverse Nations, the
> alliance pledged to press its cause at this summer's U.N.
> World Summit on Sustainable Development,
> to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August.
>
> Corporations that make medicines from naturally occurring plant
> derivatives or secure patents on genetic modifications of those
> species have raised fears that the people who first
> showed scientists where to find those plants
> could lose the right to use them or any
> profits from their use.
>
> For example, farmers in Mexico, where corn
> originated 4,000 years ago, were disturbed to find their
> plants had been accidentally contaminated by genetically
> modified corn. They were even more outraged to hear that
> U.S. companies might want to charge them for use of those
> strains.
WHAT!!! But all those Frankenfood comercials on TV
tell us that all those biotech companies are really
very touchy-feely and they just want to (sniffle) feed
a hungry world! So obviously that can't be true!
Did everybody hear about the illegal Frankencorn
that escaped, ran amuck in the USA, and ruined
much of last year's crop? No? Can you say;
hushed-up?
> While intellectual property rights and protection for biodiverse areas
> are at the heart of the alliance, Mexico's Environment Secretary said
> it had no immediate information on what mechanism the group proposes
> regarding patents and compensation.
I'm sure the biotech companies would agree to hold a summit,
join hands and sing them "We Are The People".
> "The new rules should include, among other things, certifying the
> legal possession of biological material and informed consent and
> mutually agreeable terms for transferring it," the countries' joint
> statement said.
>
> Both supporters and detractors of bioprospecting say the 1992 U.N.
> Convention on Biological Diversity, an international treaty designed
> to protect host countries and Indian communities, is riddled with
> loopholes and has been poorly implemented. The United States never
> ratified the convention.
No? Jeepers, I wonder why?
> "We neither have the internal mechanisms nor the international accords
> needed to guarantee an equitable use of genetic resources," Lichtinger
> told the founding meeting.
>
> Biodiversity is a measure of plant and animal species found only in
> limited ranges. A mega-biodiverse country is one that contains a wide
> range of ecosystems or many species found only there.
>
> Copyright 2002, Associated Press
>