Traditional community needs govt protection

Traditional community needs govt protection

JAKARTA (JP): An environmental activist is calling on the
government to move immediately to provide protection for the
intellectual property rights of traditional communities before
they are patented by foreign corporations abroad.

Riza V.T, of the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Indonesia,
said there is an immediate need to protect the intellectual
property rights of plants and other living organisms that have
been grown and developed by indigenous people.

PAN Indonesia is part of a coalition called PAN International.

Riza said that intellectual property rights regarding
agriculture are actually covered by the Law on Farming Systems
enacted in 1992. Three years later, however, the government has
not issued the regulations to enforce the legislation.

The government, he noted, appears to be indecisive about the
protection of these rights. "The attitude of the government just
goes back and forth," he added.

He cited several examples of living organisms found or
developed by traditional communities in Indonesia that should be
protected, including: a variety of rice in Pangalengan, West
Java; a variety of rice in Pasir District in East Kalimantan
which is still being grown by farmers there in addition to the
seeds provided by the government; and a coffee bean strain, which
can be grown without the aid of fertilizer, founded by farmers in
Pandeglang, West Java.

Riza said the failure to register these strains could allow
foreign corporations to claim the patents and register them
abroad.

The government's attitude before the enactment of the law, he
recalled, was clearly in favor of protecting the rights of
traditional communities and not the big corporations,
particularly multinationals.

"In 1991, Syarifudin Baharsjah, who was then junior minister
of agriculture, even said that corporations patenting
agricultural technology would be troublesome for peasants as they
wouldn't be able to afford the purchase of the patents," Riza
said.

Syarifudin is now the Minister of Agriculture.

Riza said an increasing resistance is found in developing
countries to foreign corporations registering patent rights for
living organisms found and developed in their countries.

Because of the lack of clarity in Indonesian regulations, Riza
fears that a particular Australian pharmaceutical company, for
example, might apply for the patent rights to the pasak bumi, a
plant that is believed to be an aphrodisiac and that the company
is currently studying in Kalimantan.

The need to protect the intellectual property rights of
traditional communities surfaced at a recent national congress on
biology. Some suggested that a separate, more specific law be
drafted

This issue will be one of the central themes at the second
international Convention of Biodiversity, which Indonesia will
host in November.

The meeting will debate community intellectual property rights
versus intellectual property rights, as well as access to genetic
resources and farmers' rights, Riza said.

He expressed concern with Indonesia's ability to defend its
interests at the international meeting, which excludes non-
governmental organizations, because Indonesia hardly has any
"environmental diplomats."

"We only have one or two people, including Emil Salim," he
said referring to the former environmental minister.

Emil now heads the Kehati foundation, which focuses on
biodiversity, set up after Indonesia ratified the Biodiversity
Convention last year.

The Convention was issued at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil. (anr)