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)