Biodiversity deal aims to stop drug companies plundering plants

A worldwide plan to prevent drug and biotechnology companies plundering medicinal plant resources from the developing world and then making huge profits by patenting them has been agreed after 10 years of negotiations.

Deep suspicion of drug company "bio-piracy" has led to a near-standstill in research and the cataloguing of potentially useful plants in central America, Brazil and the Philippines.

The guidelines advise governments on how to set fair and practical conditions for companies, collectors and researchers seeking genetic resources from plants for new drugs or fragrances. In return these users must offer benefits in profits, royalties, scientific collaboration, or training.

The deal provides for a share of profits to go the country of origin, and to those who knew of a plant's medical properties.

The "equitable sharing of benefits", which was agreed by the 182 countries of the Biodiversity Convention at their sixth meeting in the Hague yesterday, first arose as an issue at the Earth Summit in 1992. Ever since, the developed world and countries rich in biodiversity have been trying to agree a format for sharing both the knowledge and the benefits of genetic resources.

Claims of bio-piracy have been levelled mostly at US companies, which have sometimes patented whole plants, though more often single genes or the medicines derived from them. Because indigenous peoples who have known a plant's medicinal properties for generations feel cheated, the deal introduces "prior informed consent" for companies seeking information from them.

The deal proposes that countries should pass the agreed guidelines into law.

Michael Meacher, the environment minister, representing Britain at the talks, said the rules were vital so as to share benefits between the country of origin and the intellectual property rights of the country or company that developed them. Britain would adopt the regulations to afford companies access to genetic resources abroad.

Hamdallah Zedan, the Biodiversity Convention's executive secretary, said: "National legislation based on the guidelines will give biodiversity-rich countries additional incentives to conserve and sustainably use their resources. It will offer local indigenous communities with traditional knowledge fair compensation. And it will be a good deal for seed companies, plant breeders, and industries seeking genetic resources."

The US has signed the convention, but has not yet ratified it, and is therefore only an observer at the meeting in the Hague. It argues that it is up to companies to negotiate over a country's genetic resources. If there were accusations of bio-piracy the companies could be challenged in the US courts.

Dr Leonard Hirsch, from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, said the deal ensures that benefits will be shared and would ease fears which have caused a logjam in plant cataloguing in Andean states, Brazil and the Philippines.

Ricardo Torres, from Colombia, said that the US, in particular, had wanted the freedom for its companies to exploit the resources of others. But the deal, although voluntary, would set moral rules for companies to follow. If they do not, he said, they would find it difficult to enter countries to look for genetic resources.

But Jose Nain, from Chile, a representative of the Mapuche people, said he was not satisfied. "The rights and role of indigenous people in preserving the knowledge, passing it on and looking after the biodiversity which keeps the plant alive has to be acknowledged and paid for, so it can continue and not be wiped out," he said.