Patenting / GI Tagging biodiverse life forms and produce still has challenges

By Malini Shankar

Digital Discourse 

Patenting and documenting Biodiversity to enable access so as to facilitate sharing of benefits is the crux of the 17^th Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity that is currently underway in Yerevan, Armenia.

Now let me break it down for you.

Biodiversity, or biological diversity, is the variety of life on Earth. It includes all living organisms—plants, animals, fungi, and microorganisms—and the ecosystems in which they live, interact, and depend on one another.

Variety of life here refers to all life forms – trees, plants, flowers fruits, seeds, algae, soil, rocks, sub strata minerals, water, rain water, snow crystals, and ocean ecosystems, marine life … they are all life forms. and so on. In the interest of conservation it is necessary to document its occurrence and the ecosystem in which these thrive.

Documenting the biological properties and characteristics make up for biodiversity registries in the Biodiversity Boards. So then thee registries hold value in developing the biological properties into tangible ‘products’… meaning traditional medicines, traditional agro meteorological / seasonal products from natural resources: handicrafts like bamboo baskets, traditional medicines, nutritive cures, religious offerings, perfumes and cosmetics, handicrafts, herbs and spices, flavours and frangrances, cooking ingredients / non cultivable foods, resins, peels, seeds, roots n tubers, repellants and so on. Every region has its own rich biodiverse organic heritage.

So the Convention on Biological Diversity saw signatory countries like say India legislating relevant laws. But how can these traditions be patented? Given India’s weak copyright laws, in the present day and age it is not possible in India today to patent traditional medicines like Tricophus zeylanthicus the herbal remedy for hypertension … Or who can claim a patent for say Yoga / leather hand crafted footwear, or herbal concoction to beat snake venom? This is the crossroads at which India stands today. At best the Biodiversity Act of India can document the process of creating products from Biodiversity like herbal medicines, nutritive recipes, traditional wisdom in maternity care, etc.

 

Geographical Indication Tags or GI Tags may act as a legal certification sure, but does not safeguard channeling patent fees or its legitimate progressive investment for common property resources. That means if a research institution has succeeded in parenting a biodiverse product and has GI tagged I, then the patent fees has to be shared with the senior most member of the clan which is given the GI tag…. Say a bamboo basked used for religious rituals in India since millennia… who gets to own its original form? The senior most living person maybe nominated to collect the patent fees. By its nature, the traditional wisdom that went into making the product – in this case a bamboo basket meant for religious rituals – has to be a collective patent fees it is given to the eldest living member of the clan, ….

All the same the patent fees should benefit all members of the clan. How is this made possible? Do we invest this parent money on behalf of the benefitting community? How then? In common property resources like infrastructure, toilets, water supply health care etc? What if the eldest living member who accepts the patent money on behalf of the community is a swank MBA degree holder jet-setting on an Airbus A 380 advocating the rights of indigenous wisdom owners – like say an urban Brahminical root in hinterland Nepal?

Or wait …. Better example is: how to trace the person who formulated the lunar almanac? Is it true that the lunar almanac of oriental societies can accurately forecast geological cycles like El Nino and seismic or volcanic events? Will the modern scientific community accept such traditional wisdom at all? That is the dichotomy straddling the Convention on Biological Diversity.

There are infinite sources of such traditional wisdom spanning Humanity’s history:

1.       alternate sources of nutrition and food security,

2.       untapped sources of ground water in desert regions,

3.       how to reduce lactose in raw unpasteurized milk,  

4.       traditional tenets in pastoral practices,

5.       agricultural almanac,

6.       fishing holidays,

7.       traditional wisdom in neo natal care,

8.       traditions to beat maternal mortality

9.       deriving vitamins from vegetable and fruit peel,

10.   traditions in menstrual hygiene

And so on …. All in tune with agrometeorological wisdom of a community. The onerous task of documenting and sourcing the wisdom, and rewarding the community is that of the UNCBD Secretariat and its working groups. The working groups’ feedback to the Parties who confer at the UNCBD COP will either resolve or reject the recommendations to adopt the legal clauses as binding laws. So by the time the craftsman who made the handicraft gets his patent fees his grandson may have one foot in the grave! So slow are implementation of these mechanisms, but now you know why. But fair access to share benefits by all…that is Access and Benefit Sharing of Biodiverse Life Forms in a nutshell for you …  

Patanjali’s Baba Ramdev cannot cap or capitalize yoga asanas…Or any retail outlet cannot profit by branding or capping traditional tenets. CBD must evolve processes where capitalizing traditional wisdom must be checked but documenting is necessary to benefit future generations of Humanity.