1nc

The 1ac claims that the stigma of piracy is unjustified and that pirates should be
explored

Layton 11 (Simon, faculty of history at the University of Cambridge, historian, Discourses of Piracy in an Age of
Revolutions, http://www.academia.edu/3465172/Discourses_of_Piracy_in_an_Age_of_Revolutions)

The stigma of piracy, writes Sugata Bose, has provoked heated historical and political
debate without always shedding much new light on its meaning and
substance." As a stigma, it has not only misrepresented the morality and
motives of so-called pirates, but has also succeeded in ascribing an air of
criminality to their activities, in an absence of any law

Biopiracy is a form of piracy that steals from indigenous

communities, robs them of medicine, and destroys their
livelihoods
Pedersen 12
Stephanie Pedersen, 23 August 2012, Biopirates Are Harming Indigenous Livelihoods,
http://www.theinternational.org/articles/233-biopirates-are-harming-indigenous-livelih

In the late 1990s a Swiss national went to the Simanjiro region of Tanzania to study
the properties of the Oloisuki tree. He sent several samples back to Switzerland
where it has since been processed and turned into syrup that is used as an additive
in fruit juices, teas and toiletries. By doing this he violated Access and Benefit Sharing laws and
Tanzanian customary laws, which in an interview with LIRDO (a local NGO), he later denied having any knowledge
of. Access and Benefit Sharing laws regulate access to genetic materials and traditional knowledge and also ensure

The Maasai people in

Tanzania and Kenya have been using the bark of the Oloisuki tree for years to treat
malaria, stomach aches and to heal livestock. Recently, both the Muhimbili Univserity of Health
appropriate fair and equitable sharing that may arise from their utilization.

and Applied Sciences and Makerere University Medical School confirmed the effectiveness of Oloisuki for treating

The Maasai people have seen very little compensation for the use of the
It is a plant that has great historical and cultural value. Their traditional
knowledge regarding the properties of the tree was utilized for the production of
Oloisuki products in Switzerland. There are international laws such as the Convention on Biological
malaria and measles.
Oloisuki tree.

Diversity, which state that traditional knowledge may only be used by corporations if indigenous populations have
given their informed consent. The Maasai did not give their informed consent for the harvesting
and use of the Oloisuki tree and are demanding a patent that will provide appropriate economic compensation.
Initially, the poorest women of the Maasai tribes were assigned the task of harvesting the Oloisuki tree as part of a
project that was supposedly aimed at improving gender equality. These women were minimally compensated for
their work. The Maasai people are semi-nomadic and rely upon subsistence farming and pastoralism for their
livelihood. They live in regions of Tanzania and Kenya where access to clean water is frequently limited due to

healthcare systems are largely inadequate. They rely heavily on

the Oloisuki tree for its healing properties. With the threat of global warming, increased
droughts and their current

modernization and the loss of their traditional lands to national parks and conservation, the Maasai way of life as
farmers and pastoralists is continually threatened. The Maasai as a people are increasingly impoverished and are in

Appropriate economic compensation for the use

of the Oloisuki tree would allow for the expansion of health services, provide clean
drinking water for both themselves and their livestock and would improve the
socioeconomic welfare of the Maasai overall. What is biopiracy? The issue of bioprospecting, or biopiracy
desperate need of new economic opportunities.

as many NGOs and developing nations call it, is one that is growing in scale as large multi-national corporations and
pharmaceutical companies continue to search for new ways to make profit via the appropriation of biological

materials. Bioprospecting is the process of appropriation and commercialization of natural products ranging from
plants and animals to genes, many of which are found in the biologically diverse developing world. Often,
bioprospecting includes the use of traditional knowledge derived from indigenous peoples who have used plants as
a part of their culture for the purposes of healing, and becomes biopiracy when due credit is not given. Essentially ,

biopiracy accounts as a form of plagiarism or theft. There are several international

laws in place to regulate bioprospecting and ensure that indigenous populations are rightly
compensated for their contributions toward revenue generation, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and
the Nagoya Protocol. In an interview with Flurina Doppler, a member of a Swiss-based NGO called Berne Declaration

one of the major

shortcomings of these types of international conventions, namely that while they are
legally binding, they lack the effective means for implementation and/or
enforcement. Ms. Doppler also claims that while these international laws are in place to enforce access and
benefit sharing laws (ABS), one of the main problems in stopping biopiracy is that many countries do not
have ABS legislation as part of their national laws. Thus, while there is legislation in place to
that monitors patent applications by Swiss corporations, Doppler identified

protect indigenous populations against biopiracy, these laws are easily and frequently circumvented. A negative

Many patents either deny economic compensation to indigenous groups

entirely or they prevent indigenous groups from using specific plant
materials altogether. A report by Greenpeace about patents and bioprospectng explains that,
Patents take plant genetic resources out of the public domain and define them as
private property. The restricted use of these plants may prevent access to
traditional healing methods and this threatens indigenous health systems. Many of
these groups, including the Maasai, the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and the
tribespeople of Orissa, India lack access to modern medicine and thus greatly rely
on the traditional local healing methods. Patents award the sole use and sale of a product to the
impact

patent holder. In some cases, the patents also result in inflated prices and indigenous groups may be unable to
afford them. The problem that patents pose to these fragile healthcare systems is one that is largely unaddressed
by patent holders. Some of the more infamous examples of the harm caused by patenting to indigenous
populations include restrictions on the use of the neem tree that the indigenous populations of India and Nepal are
facing due to the patents of W R Grace and Co, and the use of the Duboisia plant by Aboriginal groups in Australia
for its uses as a sedative and in motion sickness medication.

The alternative is to reject the 1acs exploration of piracy this

act breaks first world opposition to regulations that would
protect traditional knowledge biopiracys exploitation of
biodiversity and the third world turns the case
Khor 02
Martin Khor, 23 August 2002, Why We Must Fight Biopiracy,
http://www.scidev.net/global/bioprospecting/opinion/why-we-must-fight-biopiracy.html [Martin Khor is director of the
Third World Network a non-profit international network that researches, publishes on, and organises events about
issues relating to development which is based in Malaysia.]
An even more ironic situation arises if the patented process or product leads to the sale of products at high prices in

biopiracy creates a form

of "reverse technology transfer", as it is the poor developing countries that
transfer knowledge and technology to the rich developed world . But the
developing countries involved get scant reward for their contributions; and indeed may eventually have
to pay institutions in the rich countries a high price ( itself sustained by monopolistic IPRs) for
those very developing countries from which they originated. Indeed, this form of

the use of the product or process, potentially creating a large drain on developing countries foreign exchange, and

the patenting of biological resources

restricts or prevents other producers from using processes and products related to
traditional knowledge. For example, a corporation that has successfully applied for a patent on the use of a
plant for certain functions could try to prevent others from using it in the same way. As a result, those who
adding to their foreign debt. Another problem is the way in which

have been using traditional knowledge for many generations could face restrictions
on doing so in the future. Typical examples include a US patent on the use of turmeric for healing wounds
(although this was successfully challenged by the Indian government), a Japanese patent on the anti-diabetic
properties of banana (traditionally used as herbal medicine in the Philippines), and the US patenting of a protein
from a native strain of Thai bitter gourd (after Thai scientists found its compounds could be used against HIV

Such practices are rapidly eroding the worlds store of traditional

knowledge and, in doing so, are undermining the conservation and
sustainable use of biodiversity. The patent system should not be used to reward research into
infection).

biological resources and processes, as living organisms are qualitatively different from non-living materials, and
knowledge relating to biological processes and materials cannot therefore qualify as an "invention", as required in
patent legislation. What, therefore, can be done to counter the misappropriation of IK by powerful corporations and
institutions? Firstly,

a revision is needed of IPR laws and regulations covering living

organisms, biological resources and the knowledge of their use. Article 27.3b of the TRIPS
agreement, which deals with IPR and biological resources, is currently under review. Many developing
countries, including those in the Africa Group, have proposed that this section
specifies that living organisms and biological or living processes cannot be
patented. Unfortunately developed countries, including the United States
and the European Union, are opposed to this proposal. Until such a change is
adopted, countries should take damage-limiting measures, for example by excluding plants, animals and naturally
occurring microorganisms from patentability. They should choose a sui generis system of plant variety protection
that endorses the role and value of traditional knowledge, as well as the rights over this knowledge of farmers, of
indigenous people and of local communities. Such a system could enable the country involved to protect plant

Several developing
countries are also proposing that a measure be introduced into the WTO requiring
the prior approval of countries of origin before patent applications involving a biological resource, or
varieties in a way that also protects the knowledge and innovations of local communities.

traditional knowledge about its use, are granted. This would enable countries of origin either to prevent such patent
applications, or to require benefit-sharing arrangements with the applicants. Developed countries should support
not block this proposal. As part of the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, developing
countries should also establish national arrangements for collecting and using biological resources and the
knowledge associated with them, as well as for sharing the benefits from any commercial transactions with those
communities which have developed this knowledge. Unfortunately current efforts by individual countries to review
their national laws on intellectual property, in order to bring them in line with their obligations under the TRIPS
agreement, is likely to accelerate the biopiracy phenomenon. For this process now requires countries that
previously forbade the patenting of life to allow patents on certain types of organisms and living processes. With
careful and intelligent legal and policy choices, developing countries can avoid some of the worst dangers that can

a fundamental
revision of multilateral trade rules is essential if the injustice inflicted by biopiracy
on local communities and their indigenous knowledge is to be corrected.
arise from the implementation of their obligations under TRIPS. In the long run, however,

2nc

Link exploring history

The history of pirates is entrenched in the piracy of Columbus
and his imposition of private ownership this manifests today
in neo-colonialism
Whittingham 3/25
Jen Whittingham, 25 March 2014, GMO the piracy of indigenous knowledge, http://www.badgeronline.co.uk/gmopiracy-indigenous-knowledge/
The GMO debate is complex. With scientists on both sides, you have to take into account other moral factors,
factors that will force you to have an opinion. My opinion is that we have enough food to feed the world, it is simply

It
is estimated that 870 million people go hungry every day whilst 1.7 billion are
considered obese. Why is it then that we have this scarcity amidst abundance? Its not a production
problem but a distributional problem, an income problem. The people that need the food
arent getting it while transnational corporations accumulate through the piracy of
indigenous knowledge. A popular argument is that GMOs will feed a growing population. However, between
grossly unequally distributed and this is facilitated through unequal power structures that remain unchallenged.

30 and 50 percent of food produced globally never makes it to a plate. In the UK as much as 30 percent of
vegetable crops are not harvested due to their not-quite-perfect physical appearance; we dont want cock-eyed
carrots or lopsided leeks thwarting our impeccably precise dinner plates. Furthermore, this colossal figure doesnt
even reflect the fact that vast amounts of land, energy, fertilisers and water have also been lost in the production of
foodstuffs which simply end up as waste. I think it is this aspect of our consumer culture that needs to be
dramatically changed, not the genes of crops that have yet to reach the soil, nor the lives of farmers and their

Monsanto is the worlds

largest supplier of genetically modified seeds and has been heavily criticized for bio
piracy. If we go back to the colonization of India, the Columbus charter and patents
granted by the European monarchs laid the juridical and moral
foundations for the colonization and extermination of non-Europeans. 500
years later, a more secular version of the same project of colonization continues
through patents and intellectual property rights. The vacancy of targeted lands has been
families who can appreciate the intrinsic value that nature gives us, naturally.

replaced by the vacancy of targeted life forms whilst the occupation of seeds by transnational corporations, like

Monsanto is facilitated by modern day rulers concurrently forcing non-Western

intelligence upon traditional knowledge systems. In 2002, 90 percent of Indian cotton farmers
swapped to Monsantos But technology variety hoping for pest resistance. the farmers had no choice
but to buy Monsantos pesticides. Now, farmers must buy new, costly GM seeds
every year along with matching pesticide. All these factors have often left farmers
bankrupt and hopeless and feel they have no choice but to end their life. Figures show that in 2009
alone, 17,638 Indian farmers committed suicide. Through patenting and genetic
engineering, new colonies are being carved out. Land, water, forests and the
oceans have already been carved in this way and now, through the logical of
capitalism, it must find a new space to invade and exploit. A seed; a life form, is
reduced to a mere commodity and its deep, ecological value is disregarded, and in
its place we find a homogenization of culture, of land and of knowledge; the simple
abbreviation of GMO hides the struggles of thousands and the limitless destruction
of our earth.

Impact s/v
Biopiracy allows rich countries to strip developing nations and
indigenous people of resources, widening the 1st/3rd world
divide and causing unjustifiable structural violence
Staral and Sekerak 12
Johanna Marie Staral and Jean Ann Sekerak, 2012, FIGHTING BIOPIRACY AT THE SOURCE: SENSITIZING INDIGENOUS
COMMUNITIES TO WESTERNIZED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND THE THREAT OF BIOPIRACY,
https://www.academia.edu/1115515/FIGHTING_BIOPIRACY_AT_THE_SOURCE_SENSITIZING_INDIGENOUS_COMMUNITI
ES_TO_WESTERNIZED_INTELLECTUAL_PROPERTY_RIGHTS_AND_THE_THREAT_OF_BIOPIRACY [Case Western Reserve
University School of Law (USA) International Partners in Mission (USA)]

The effects of biopiracy are far-reaching and injurious to global development.

Biopiracy increases distrust in the research community, reduces the economic and
political power of developing nations, and violates basic human rights. When biopiracy
occurs because there is a lack of properly obtained permission given by the indigenous community, it is very likely
that this will be viewed as extremely offensive. This cultural affront erodes the already delicate trust that
indigenous peoples have for the Norths research community, making it difficult to forge ethical relationships for
biological research, injuring the drug discovery potential of the medical industry. The effects on economic
development in the South are much more severe. Through the use of I PRs and the TR I Ps mandate, patent holders
and corporations leave developing countries and indigenous peoples out of the development of products based on
their traditional knowledge and biological resources. 1
projects like Mujer y Comunidad,

are in danger .

Projects utilizing TK and local resources,

Even more damaging are plant patents that can keep

The inability of these countries to

access the economic potential held by their resources further exacerbates the
inequality of the global market. The worst effects of biopiracy are born by the people living in these
struggling nations. Biopiracy can price essential medical therapies far outside the
reach of these communities and deplete the resources used for food and
shelter by indigenous peoples. Developed nations that are complicit in acts of biopiracy
are violating the basic human rights that they helped to enshrine in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. 11 Biopiracy goes further and erodes the identity and psyche of the
provider countries from selling and exporting their resources.

cultures it effects, ignoring the human rights principles espoused in the Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural

The appropriation of biological resources tied to traditional knowledge

returns relatively nascent nations to their oppressive colonial past through the
exploitation and degradation of a peoples culture. Dr. I kechi Mgbeoji, states, I n cases where
Rights. 12

traditional use of plants pertains to the culture of a people, it seems beyond doubt that biopiracy constitutes both
an individual and collective violation of an internationally recognized and protected right to culture. Even though
economic, social and cultural rights have traditionally been marginalized in the human rights discourse and praxis,
there is no doubt among scholars that they are human rights in the full sense of the term, with all the legal

it is imperative that biopiracy be

addressed by the international community and that individual states fulfill their
obligation to protect human rights within their territories and globally. 1.4 The Need for
obligations attendant thereto. 13 When viewed from this perspective,

Protection The preservation of biological diversity is important for the entire human population, as evidenced by the
emergence of international treaties like the Kyoto Protocol and the Convention of Biological Diversity. 14,15
However, recent technological advances have put added strain on environments where biological materials are

"[t]he emergence of new

biotechnologies has changed the meaning and the value of biodiversity. I t has been
converted form a life-support base for poor communities to the raw material base
for powerful corporations. 16 This change in valuation has created a potentially
dangerous demand for resources once freely utilized by indigenous peoples without
the threat of depletion. Yet it has also created an opportunity for developing countries to gain a foothold in
sourced. As outspoken anti-biopiracy author, Vandana Shiva, has observed,

the world economy. Sovereign states control access to their resources and have used this positionof power as a
means of gaining some leverage in negotiating political and economic relations. 1 I f done correctly,developing

countries can create regulations that will utilize biological resources responsibly through conservation practices that
will provide lasting economic benefit. 17 I t is imperative that indigenous populations are included in
thedevelopment of these regulations, as they are perhaps the best suited to be the stewards of the developing
worlds biological diversity, having both a vested interest in conservation as a means of preserving their heritage
and as arenewable source of income

Impact human rights

The affirmative justifies infringement on basic human rights
Harvard took tissue and blood from the Huaorani people
without their consent in the name of medical advancement
Hogan 7/17
Clare Hogan, 17 July 2014, BIOPIRACY: THE NEW TYRANT OF THE DEVELOPING WORLD,
http://www.coha.org/biopiracy-the-new-tyrant-of-the-developing-world/ [Research Associate at the Council on
Hemispheric Affairs]

Developed nations have a long history of exploiting indigenous populations for their
own personal benefit. Whereas the ill treatment was once centered on acquiring land and natural resources,
the latest developments suggest a new form of abuse: biopiracy. News of the exploitation of an Ecuadorian
indigenous group at the hands of a coalition of American-based organizations has recently come to light. Though

U.S.-based Coriell Medical

Institute and Harvard University colluded with oil-drilling company Maxus Energy
Corporation in the drawing of thousands of blood samples from the native Huaorani
tribe in Ecuador. The real depravity of this issue lies in the way in which the medical samples were obtained.
Fewer than 20 percent of the participants signed an authorization for the procedure,
and all were further under the impression that their blood was being extracted to
conduct personal medical examinations.[1] However, tribe members never received
any results. Instead, these DNA samples were sold to medical labs in eight different
countries, including the Harvard University Medical School in the United States, generating profits for the Coriell
the intricate details have yet to be fully divulged, it was discovered that

Institute.[2] The Facts From 1990 to 1991, it is estimated that as many as 3,500 blood samples were drawn from

several pints of blood must have been

obtained from each individual.[3] Along with the blood, tissue samples were also
collected, providing the Coriell Institute with a total of 36 full DNA samples and seven cell lines to use for
research and sale.[4] Between 1990 and 2012, 31 research papers based on the collected
data were written, all of which were authored without the consent of the Huaorani;
necessary royalties for the essays commercial use were also never paid to the
tribe.[5] Medical research labs in the United States and other countries, such as Singapore, Japan, Italy, India,
600 Huaorani members. This evidence confirms that

Germany, Brazil, and Canada, also bought the Huaorani DNA samples for further medical experimentation. Many of
these global scientists believe that Huaorani members could possess an auspicious genetic mutation which affords
them immunity to certain diseases like hepatitis, though this theory has yet to be scientifically proven.[6] The
Morality of Medicine If this supposed biological immunity is actually a reality, then the research would result in

Lawless actions committed in the name of

medicine are not morally justified, and should not be viewed as such when they
involve large foreign corporations exploiting indigenous populations. Although not
revolutionary medical advancements but at what cost?

enforced in this particular situation, Ecuador does have laws against biopiracy that are in place to deter this exact
behavior. Article 66 (3)(d) of Ecuadors Constitution explicitly prohibits the use of genetic material and scientific

the
Coriell Institute ultimately stole DNA, thus irrefutably violating the Huaoranis basic
human rights. Biopirating the Huaorani Biopiracy, also known as bioprospecting, is legally defined as failing to
experimentation that undermines human rights.[7]Looking closely at the facts of the case, it is evident that

obtain permission to collect samples, failing to disclose ones motivations in collecting samples, failing to follow
national laws, or failing to follow [a] companys self-regulatory guidelines.[8] Usually, the term is more commonly
used to refer to the theft or privatization of biological materials, such as endemic vegetation. In this scenario,
however, the expression is very fitting.[9] In fact, the actions of the Coriell Institute could warrant the creation of a
new sub-genre known as genetic biopiracy. In recent years, biopiracy has become an increasingly prominent issue

it is fiscally impossible for indigenous communities to

combat the encroachments of large, affluent corporations, and thus, indigenous
groups are left vulnerable to exploitation as a result of their comparative lack of
resources. Foreign pharmaceutical companies, for example, travel to Latin America in search of potential
in Latin America. In many cases,

medicinal components and oftentimes overpower indigenous objections because they can afford the expensive
patents and necessary extraction procedures that indigenous populations cannot.[10] Additionally ,

if not
reported properly, these transgressions can be overlooked by a countrys national
government, and native populations are consequently left without adequate legal representation.

Alt discourse
Biopiracy destroys indigenous culture public criticism and
discussions are key reverse the trend of biocolonialism
Tedlock 06
Barbara Tedlock, May 2006, Indigenous Heritage and Biopiracy in the Age of Intellectual Property Rights,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550830706000668 [Barbara Tedlock, PhD, is the granddaughter
of an Ojibwe midwife and herbalist and was trained and initiated as a shamanic healer by the Kiche Maya of
highland Guatemala. She is currently distinguished professor of Anthropology at SUNY Buffalo and research
associate at the School of American Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is the author of five books]

South Africas Council for

sold the development rights for a cactus called Hoodia
in 2000 to Phytopharm, a UK-based pharmaceutical company. Claiming that San peoples who once
used the cactus were extinct, they patented the active ingredient P57. The San, currently
numbering more than 100,000 people, live in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa, Botswana,
Namibia, and Angola. They have long eaten this cactus to stave off hunger during hunting
and gathering trips. The patent was sold in 2001 for $21 million to the US firm Pfizer. Neither CSIR nor
Phytopharm notified or asked for consent from the San for such a transaction. After
the groups were publicly criticized for failing to recognize the role that San traditional knowledge
had played in identifying the key ethnobotanical property in the cactus, they offered the San a small
benefit-sharing arrangement.39, 40, 41, 42 and 43 Although the formation of the WIPO
seemed encouraging at first, to at least some legal scholars, the competing
commercial interests of the signatories of the 1992 TRIPS agreement,
backed by the WTO, continued to dominate the discussions . In December 2001, a
Unfortunately, this new agency could not curb the rampant biopiracy. Thus,
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

group of indigenous shamans from Brazil formulated an important WIPO document entitled the Letter from So
Luis do Maranho, which questioned the ethical and the legal grounds for patents deriving from traditional
indigenous knowledge.44 It soon became apparent that placing key information (seeds, human DNA, and genes)
into the hands of WIPO actually facilitated biopiracy rather than discouraging it because there were so many
rewards and so few mechanisms to prevent individuals and enterprises from seeking to privatize collective public

According to indigenous leaders, their cultural heritage cannot be owned

or monopolized by any single individual, and, thus, it cannot be surrendered or sold
on an unconditional basis. They describe all such transactions as biocolonialism46
and assert that the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples is a collective right,
and, as such, the responsibility for its use, and management in accordance with indigenous laws and
traditions, is borne by the community as a whole. 47
resources.45

Alt multilateral
Alternative card ( Develop contractual benefit sharing)
Hearn 06 (Kelly Hearn, Kelly Hearn is a correspondent to National Geographic
News and The Christian Science Monitor. His work has been funded by The Pulitzer
Center for Crisis Reporting and The North American Congress on Latin America. A
former UPI reporter, he has published in The Nation, Grist, High Country News, The
Washington Times and World Politics Watch. He is a frequent contributor to Alternet.
Biopirates Walk the Plank 14 June 2006.
http://www.alternet.org/story/37470/biopirates_walk_the_plank LP)
Meanwhile, as rain forests are destroyed (by a multitude of factors), the money machine keeps on turning. Some

three-quarters of all plant-derived prescription drugs were discovered because they had
once been used in indigenous medicine, according to one figure. Another says that between 1950s and
1980, drugs derived from medicinal plants consistently accounted for not less than a quarter of all prescription drug
sales in the United States. Some say the biopiracy backlash is hurting more than some corporations'
image. Thomas Lovejoy, president of the Heinz Center for Science Economics and the Environment, is a known
advocate of rainforest preservation -- and a formerly accused biopirate. He was swept up in Brazil's biopiracy panic
last year, even accused by some Brazilians as being a CIA operative while working in the jungle for the Smithsonian
Institution. After appearing before a Brazilian congressional committee, he was eventually cleared of the charges.
"While one can understand the attention being paid to biopiracy, it in fact is fairly easy to prevent," he sad in an
email. "No modern-day scientific institution would condone it, and the basic framework of intellectual property
protection should be sufficient to protect national interests in the economic potential of biodiversity applications.
Unfortunately in some situations the preoccupation with biopiracy borders on obsessive, and I believe does get in
the way of research and the best interests of the countries involved." So, if new patents and bilateral deals over
benefit sharing aren't the way to ensure that indigenous groups and developing countries get their cut of the cake,

activists call for nonproprietary systems of benefit sharing -multilateral frameworks in which governments support a global biodiversity
fund, a kind of endowment for promoting the needs of those indigenous
groups. Can the patent genie be put back into the bottle, somehow made subordinate to biodiversity needs?
what's the answer? Some

Will the biopiracy label lose public relations power if misused? Is science truly being hurt? Should indigenous groups
call for new rights of ownership over their natural habitat? Is seeking "contractual benefit sharing" a bad row to
hoe? Certainly Alejandro Argumedo thinks so. In a quote attributed to him, the Quechua activist said:
"Contractual

benefit sharing is like waking up in the middle of the night to

find your house being robbed. On the way out the door, the thieves tell you
not to worry because they promise to give you a share of whatever profit
they make selling what used to belong to you."

The alternative solves- Brazil proves

Hearn 06 (Kelly Hearn, Kelly Hearn is a correspondent to National Geographic
News and The Christian Science Monitor. His work has been funded by The Pulitzer
Center for Crisis Reporting and The North American Congress on Latin America. A
former UPI reporter, he has published in The Nation, Grist, High Country News, The
Washington Times and World Politics Watch. He is a frequent contributor to Alternet.
Biopirates Walk the Plank 14 June 2006.
http://www.alternet.org/story/37470/biopirates_walk_the_plank LP)

Many indigenous groups and developing countries are calling for "contractual benefits
sharing" whenever corporations make money off "research leads" or materials snatched from native habitats.
Some call for new patent rights over seeds, knowledge and other things foreign
companies have been known to grab. Still others reject altogether the right to patent life forms. The
crosscurrents make biopiracy, a very real and ecological destructive problem, a vague and confusing buzzword. One
challenge for biopiracy activists is getting America's shrunken attention span around the dull but crucial topic of
patent law. Perhaps that's why biopiracy has a sensationalist vibe. "Patents

are socially corrosive and

the whole system undermines conservation and use of biological diversity ," says Hope
Shand of ETC Group, which is a member of the Coalition Against Biopiracy. As corporations probe deeper into

Washington's global push for free trade

deals spreads a "predatory patent systems" that favors industrialized nations and
treats nature as a commodity, say many activists. Several famous cases of "bad patents"
reveal how the U.S. patent office can hurt developing countries, especially farmers, by
awarding patents for, say, beans or rice that have been grown by indigenous communities for centuries.
Those cases are grist for international attempts to fix the problem. But how do the world's poorest
communities make claims against corporate power and a U.S. administration loathe to protect
traditional knowledge and biodiversity at the expense of big business? Brazil, a species-rich country that has seen
biopirates skedaddle with its resources, has passed domestic biopiracy laws while boosting its
own scientific potential to make use of its natural endowment . According to a recent New
York Times report, it has passed a law aimed at punishing those who use indigenous
resources without permission, or who don't share the benefits with the state or local communities. The
fines from penalties will go to conservation efforts .
jungles looking for the next miracle drug or food product,

Alt and a2 perm

India has empirically shown that governments are ineffective
in handling biopiracy only an active citizenry can solve
Shiva 01
Dr. Vandana Shiva, 10 September 2001, The Basmati Battle And its Implications for Biopiracy and Trips,
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/SHI109A.html [Director of Research, Foundation for Science, Technology and
Ecology, New Delhi]

India did not loose the

Basmati Patent Challenge. No new patents have been given to RiceTec, and no new right has been given
to market their varieties as equivalent to or superior to Basmati. RiceTec has been forced to give up
its far-reaching and false claims to having invented a very broad range of Basmati
rice lines and plants. We have won the Basmati biopiracy battle, though the war for
defense of farmers' rights, indigenous knowledge and biodiversity still needs to be
won. And this partial victory has been based more on citizens' actions than
government action. As a result of a worldwide citizen campaign against RiceTec
Basmati patents, on Aug 14th 2001 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office struck down large
sections of the Basmati patent. The generic title of the RiceTec patent No. 5663484, which earlier referred
The Basmati Victory Contrary to misinformation in some sections of the media,

to Basmati rice lines. The sweeping and false claims of RiceTec having `invented', traits of rice seeds and plants
including plant height, grain length, aroma which are characteristics found in our traditional Basmati varieties. The
collective cumulative innovation of our farmers was thus being pirated by a Texas based company. Claims to
general methods of breeding which was also piracy of traditional breeding done by farmers and our scientists (Of

When RiceTec was granted the 20 far

reaching Basmati claims, the Government of India (GOI) did not challenge this
outrageous biopiracy. We had to file a PIL and get the Supreme Court to ask the government to take legal
action in the USPTO. When the Government did go to USPTO it challenged only 3 claims
the 20 original claims only three narrow ones survive)

related to basmati grain, and hence to basmati exports. It did not challenge claims related to basmati seeds and
plants, and hence to farmers' rights & traditional knowledge even though the research done by the CFTRI (Central
Food Technology Research Institute, in Mysore) and ICAR established that the basmati seed claims covered our

the GOI represented by APEDA told the Supreme Court they were
satisfied with the withdrawal of 4 claims by RiceTec and did not intend to fight the
Basmati patents any further because exporters' interests had been defended. There
was no attempt to defend farmers' rights. Even in the debate in Parliament, the Basmati issue has
traditional varieties. In fact on 25 Jan 2001,

been narrowed to the issue of exports, and detracted from the large issue of biopiracy, traditional knowledge and
farmers rights. This issue can no longer be evaded because the surviving claims to Bas 867, RT 1117 and RT 1121
have been granted on the basis that farmers breeding does not count, but when farmers' varieties are used to
derive varieties with the valuable characteristics such as aroma already evolved by farmers, it is treated as an

When the
government failed once again to defend our basmati biodiversity and indigenous
knowledge, the Research Foundation along with other citizens groups launched a
global campaign against RiceTec's Basmati patents. Organisations and individuals
bombarded the USPTO with protest letters, demanding the US Patent Office not to
protect biopirates. The fact that USPTO struck down 15 claims out of 20 in spite of
GOI asking for withdrawal of only 3 and the U.S. Government insisting that they
would never drop the generic claim to basmati shows that once again people
proved more powerful than corporations and governments. The Basmati victory is
invention and given patent protection. These rice varieties have used Indian and Pakistani varieties.

the Seattle in the domain of Biodiversity and TRIPs. Need to challenge TRIPS The next step of the Basmati Battle is
about the defense of indigenous innovation and the recognition of the contribution of our biodiversity. These issues
form the core of concerns in pending Bills before parliament. These issues of ownership of biodiversity & traditional
knowledge that have been the subject of intense negotiations in the Seed Wars at the Convention on Biological
Diversity.

A2 perm
Piracy is not ambiguous it can be both good and bad, but the
affs use of pirates as a holistic entity locks them into a
problematic defense of biopiracy
Roth 4/20
Steffen Roth, 20 April 2014, Special Issue on: "Entrepreneurship and Piracy",
http://www.inderscience.com/info/ingeneral/cfp.php?id=2254
[ESC Rennes School of Business, France]

Piracy is a problem rather than a key for economic

de-velopment and growth. Be it in South East Asia (Vagg, 1995), the Western Indian
Ocean (Dua, 2013) or on the Internet (Peitz and Waelbroeck, 2006), piracy represents a maybe
partially excusable deviation from the standard case of productivity enhancing
entrepreneurial activities (Eckhardt and Shane, 2003). Even if piracy can sometimes be considered an act
On the one hand, things could not be clearer.

of emancipation, it remains a form of informal economic activities that calls for a re-embedding into the formal
economy (Webb et al., 2009) or simply has to be prevented (Sinha and Mandel, 2008). Walking the lines of
yesterdays grassroots and todays grasshopper capitalism, the freebooter is a token for a politico-economic tertium

product
piracy represents an attack on both the wealth of a nation and its social or
ecological standards. IPR piracy undermines both the business models of developed economies and the
datur and dreaded and condemned by both the conservative and the progressive establishment:

indigenous rights of its creative classes. Robbery on the international seaways clearly calls for military interventions
because the pirates violate the intimate rights not only of the merchants on the high seas, but also of the human

The worst case of piracy is probably biopiracy (Odek, 1994), i.e. the act of robbing Gaias own genetic resources. A pirate is virtually
nature in their failed states home environments.

an economic terrorist. On the other hand, the concept of piracy has obviously struck a chord for quite some time
already. Neither paragon nor pariah (Smith, 1980), the pirate emerged as a role model attractive to larger parts of
the creative classes, which are actually said to suffer most from piracy. Even more so, as a label, piracy is the least
common denominator of both the business models and the political lobby of the growing number of digital nomads
and natives, while acclaimed information piracy springs wikileaks and streams the stuff digital heroes are made of.

Anti-piracy is therefore increasingly considered an old-school form of pro-capitalist

propaganda (Yar, 2008) and power politics directed against the core values, creative
potential and (social) entrepreneurial activities of the recent fibre-roots movements.
Besides, recent research has found that product piracy can have positive effects even for the victims, which is true
for cases whenever the copy of a product multiplies the publicity and the value of the original (De Castro et al.,
2008).

The status quo cant solve- patent laws fail

Mgbeoji 06 (Ikechi Mgbeoji, eceived his Juris Scientiae Doctor degree from Dalhousie University. He is a
law professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University.2 He previously practiced civil litigation, patent law and
intellectual property law. He has taught at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He is also the author of
Collective Insecurity: The Liberian Crisis, Unilateralism, & Global Order and the co-author of Environmental Law in
Developing Countries: Selected Issues.3 He also serves as a consultant to the Environmental Law Center of the
World Conservation Union. Mr. Mgbeoji has also been the recipient of numerous academic awards, including the
Killam Scholarship and the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft Award.4
Global Piracy: Patents, Plants, and Indigenous Knowledge. 2006. http://jost.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/globalbiopiracy_patents-plants-and-indiginous-knowledge.pdf LP)

To add to the tensions between traditional knowledge and the Western , masculine legal
structure, most innovations and improvements involving plants in developing nations have been provided by
women. These women are in an especially difficult situation, because gender discrimination is likely in their own

international patent theories only increase that discrimination. This structure

emphasizes the inequality that exists between developing nations and the industrialized
nations, and

world. As discussed before, there exists an asymmetric movement of plants and resources between these nations.
This movement is often rationalized with the argument that the movement of these resources to gene banks and

the intellectual
contributions of developing nations are devalued.31 This includes contributions to both the
scientific and legal areas. Further, some patent systems have even been modified to lower the standards for
patentability, which allows for the exploitation and appropriation of plant resources. The amount of resources
that have been appropriated for commercial use in the industrialized world is staggering . For
example, coffee, coca and corn are all native to developing nations, yet they make up a
significant portion of Western diet and everyday life .32 While scholars have decried the exploitation of
other facilities in the industrialized nations is what is best for humanity.30 At the same time,

the Southern Hemisphere for resources such as gold and silver, little argument is made about the appropriation of

The act of appropriating these resources has essentially been

institutionalized by programs claiming to explore and improve agriculture throughout the
world.33 Seeds were often taken from their natural environments and came to be stored in the
National Seed Storage Laboratory in Colorado. Similar facilities exist in nations around the world. Even
international organizations headed by Western corporations or nations, have been formed to
respond to calls to modify or end biopiracy have been ineffective.34 7Thirty-five crops have been
listed by the international community as belonging in the global commons .35 However, there
is argument as to whether this list is sufficient. Likewise, some major food crops are not on the list, which
may be an attempt by developing nations to keep certain crops out of the hands of the
stronger nations, representing the increasing struggle for the rights over precious biological
resources.
biological resources.

Robinson

Daniel F
, 31 March 2009, Locating biopiracy: geographically and culturally situated knowledges
[Institute of Environmental Studies, The University of New South Wales, Room 132 IES, Vallentine Annexe, Sydney,
NSW 2052, Australia, and Australian Mekong Resource Centre, School of Geosciences, The University of Sydney,
Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia] LP

Biopiracy' is a term that was first coined by the Canada-based NGO Rural Advan- cement Foundation
International (RAFI) (now the ETC Group) activist Mooney (2000; RAFI, 1995). The term was
developed because of growing frustrations about the appropriation and
monopolisation of long-held medicinal and agricultural knowl- edge
about nature, as well as the related physical resources (plants, animals, and their
`

components). The flow of these resources and knowledge, often ``from biodiversity in the South to medicines,
[cosmetics and crops] in the North'' (Svarstad and Dhillion, 2000, page 9), was targeted by NGOs as a hypocritical
injustice on the part of corporations and researchers predominantly from the US, Europe, Japan, and the Western

Although the colonial enterprise of plant and animal collecting has

been ongoing for centuries (see, for example, Brockway, 1979; Kloppenberg, 1988; Schiebinger,
2004), the biopiracy discourse was generated to illustrate that more
recent technological and institutional changes have encouraged new
inequities. In the context of the new `global' IP rules, biopiracy has essentially been
wielded as a counterdiscourse to IP `piracy'. As Mooney (2000) notes, international
world.

agreements such as the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) negotiated at the Rio Earth
Summit in 1992, and the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
consolidated some specific Euro-American ideologies about the IP ownership of nature as genetic resources.

Specifically, the term `bioprospecting' was coined in response to a

book by the World Resources Institute (Reid et al, 1993) entitled

Biodiversity Prospecting. The book championed a `win ^ win' scenario
of `benefit sharing' and respect for indigenous or traditional
knowledge, and also a boon for humanity through scientific research. Mooney and RAFI disagreed
with these assumptions, using biopiracy to point out that the socioeconomic environment at the time
made mutually beneficial contracts between providers and users of
genetic resources virtually impossible. According to Mooney (2000),
intergovernmental regu- latory mechanisms and agreements were
needed for the possibility of equitable benefit sharing . But, further than that, their
campaign targeted the explicit protectionism that biotechnology companies were implementing through not only IP
rights, but also biotechnological advances such as genetic-use restriction technologieswhich they dubbed
``terminator technologies'' (RAFI, 1998). RAFI linked biopiracy claims with evidence that transnational seed
companies were planning to use terminator technol- ogies for seed sterilisation, thus inhibiting farmer reuse of

RAFI was able to highlight the ongoing legal and technical

institutionalisation of farmers from the global South. Biopiracy was
picked up and used by many other activists and NGOs for related
purposes and campaigns. Probably the most prominent individual champion of the biopiracy
seeds. In this way,

discourse is Shiva (2001): Biopiracy refers to the use of intellectual property systems to legitimize the exclusive
ownership and control over biological resources and biological products and processes that have been used over

Shiva's attacks on the green revolution

(1991), the IP system (1997; 2001), and genetic reductionism also
gained significant international attention. Particularly rele vant was her activism on
centuries in non-industrialized cultures'' (page 49).

several basmati rice patents in the US, which led to the revocation of four basmati-related claims by the patent

Behind Shiva was a network of farmers and local

communities with sufficient power to influence public opinion and
government policies, laws (such as The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act 53 of
2001 in India), and positions in international fora. This network of influence
was expanded through engagement with other NGOs such as the Third World
owner (NISCAIR, 2002).

Network, in statements by indigenous people's movements and civil society actions such as the Thammasaat
Resolution in Thailand (in 1997), and also in the discourses of intergovernmental organisations of developing
countries such as the South Centre. Thus, with the enrolment of broader public sympathies for NGO causes,

discussion on biopiracy has extended beyond `activist' agendas . What are

particularly interesting are the recent discussions on biopiracy by government delegates in statements and
submissions to international organisations: One of the measures adopted [in Peru] was the creation of the National
Anti- Biopiracy Commission, whose basic task is to develop actions to identify, prevent and avoid acts of biopiracy
which involve biological resources of Peruvian origin and traditional knowledge of the indigenous peoples of Peru''
(Peru, 2005, page 1). There are lots of problems with biopiracy in Thailand ...' despite the introduction of national
laws, showing the need for international regulation'' (IP-Watch 2006). With the development of national bodies
targeting biopiracy and official statements by government departments and delegates to the WTO, attempts to
mitigate biopiracy have gained increasing momentum. Official engagement with biopiracy implies public pressures
on governments to find equitable and just solutions to the issues of biological resource and knowledge ownership.
But it is also based on the pressures within some states to protect (and exploit) their `sovereign rights' to
biodiversity according to the CBD. Out of this convention, the discourses of benefit sharing and prior informed
consent are spun to serve variable interests from NGOs like RAFI, to government departments, and biotechnology
industry lobbies (see Finston, 2005). In addition, biopiracy has been used strategically in negotiations. Owing to the
inequities in trade flows between countries in the global South and those in the global North, biological resources
have emerged as a bargaining tool for those countries with less political and economic leverage. For example,
Dutfield (2005) notes that discussions on a `disclosure of origin requirement' to limit inappropriate patenting of
acquired biological resources have been used strategically by developing countries to stall negotiating progress on
a Substantive Patent Law Treaty in WIPO.(1) These governmental resistances also hint at a growing awareness of

the new IP `fundamentalism' (Dutfield, 2006) and `inequality' (Drahos and Braithwaite, 2003), as raised by
influential academics and researchers, which is best illustrated through a historical analysis of the situated and
hypocritical policies of countries like the US and Japan, and those from the EU.

Bioprospecting transforms nature into commercial enterprise

means their project of benevolent exploration turns into an
attempt to exploit the ocean of its resources
Hobbs 11 (Peter D., crop scientist and agronomist at Cornell University College of
Agriculture and Life Science, Science in Action: The Flow of Plants, Knowledge and
Neoliberal Politics Review of Cori Haydens When Nature Goes Public: Bioprospecting
in Mexico (2003), August 31, 2011,
http://xenogenesisdotcom.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/science-in-action-the-flow-ofplants-knowledge-and-neoliberal-politics/)//rh
My purpose is to track the ways in which a host of political liabilities and property
claims, accountabilities and social relations are being actively written into routine
scientific practices, tools and objections of invention and back out again I see the
key task for science studies in this context as one of analyzing how such relations
are being activated and fashioned in articulation with neoliberal modes of
participation for a wide range of actors, including scientists and their rural and
indigenous interlocutors. (29) In her ethnographic mapping of the complicated
exchanges and debates of bioprospecting in Mexico, Cori Hayden continually
presses the point that bioprospecting incorporates nature, transforming it into a
commercial enterprise. Nature, she states, is one of the many things that has
increasingly been treated, by development agencies, national governments in the
North and South, organizations regulating global trade, and some conservationists,
as a public good best regulated and managed through market mechanism (48).
She also makes the point that in this capitalization of nature individuals are
also regulated and managed by being delegated roles, responsibilities,
and financial rewards. Scientists and rural populations are drafted to expedite
the extraction of plant samples with the ultimate goal of developing commercial
drugs and pesticides. Government officials are similarly drafted to facilitate possible
bioprospecting sites by doing such things as negotiating trade agreements, creating
regulations and zoning laws that would be favorable to the industry, providing the
necessary infrastructure such as building roads and power lines to remote areas,
and encouraging venture capital from the private sector by providing financial
incentives in the form of grants and tax credits. As a result of this concerted effort,
the commerce of bioprospecting and everyday life for many Mexicans has become
much more entrenched. As Hayden explains, this epistemic shift is not limited to
rural Mexico but is part of a much broader shift that manifested with the rise of
neoliberalism. The neoliberal agenda espoused by the Reagan and Thatcher
governments in the 1980s has become predominant to the extent that not only has
nature been transformed into a source of capital, but all of life has been similarly
refashioned. In this shift biology, specifically molecular biology, has assumed a
place of great importance. The biochemical process of synthesizing molecular
compounds found in plants is seen as an effective way to develop pharmaceuticals
and other products and is being herald as both a lucrative and sustainable model of

economic development that is socially and environmentally responsible. Echoing

Marilyn Strathern and Donna Haraway, Hayden refers to this neoliberal revision of
life and microbiology as a matter of enterprising up (27). What sets Haydens text
apart from other critiques of neoliberalism and the capitalization of nature is her
refusal to represent bioprospecting in Mexico as a well-defined ethical debate.
Instead, she insists on the muddiness of bioprospecting, its ambiguous twist and
turns, its aspirations and fears, its promises and setbacks. Rather than attempt to
summarize the intricacies of Hayden ethnography, I want to focus on aspects of her
methodology as a way to highlight some of the recurring aims of science studies.
Alongside these aims I also want to flesh out possible shortcomings. Early on
Hayden reminds readers that one of basic principles of science studies is the idea
that (scientific) knowledge does not simply represent (in the sense of depict)
nature, but it also represents (in the political sense) the social interests of the
people and the institutions that have become wrapped up in its production (21). In
other words, science brings politics to life, as it constitutes one of the main cultural
forms/forums in which ideological values and norms manifests. Science studies in
turn intervenes by tracing the political lines of thought that run through scientific
knowledge. For Haydens project this is a matter of charting the flow of Mexican
plants and knowledge from the countryside and rural communities to the sprawling
campus of UNAM in Mexico City; from UNAM to U.S. corporations and the University
of Arizona; from these U.S. sites back to various agencies, institutes, and
communities in Mexico (10). By charting this flow, Hayden literally reveals some
the geopolitics of science in action. One of the ways Hayden can be seen as
intervening in bioprospecting is to spend considerable time in the field observing
how the necessary science and relationships are produced. The ethnographic
demands lengthy periods of time spent observing your subject firsthand. Haydens
ethnographic approach can be understood as a means of slowing down
bioprospectings normal flow of plants and information. It is important to the
political and financial success of bioprospecting that there is the appearance of a
relatively smooth and consistent series of exchanges in which all the various parties
are being treated fairly and efficiently. By being present on a daily bases with the
plant-gathering teams, Hayden is in effect able to slowly dissect the various nodes
in the bioprospecting network. This way of working coincides with Bruno Latours
claim that slowness is one of the main strengths of Actor Network Theory or ANT.
The ANT scholar, he declares, prefers to travel slowly, on small roads, on foot, and
by paying the full cost of any displacement out of its own pocket. Latour argues
that adopting this slow-paced approach (what he also refers to as a slowciology)
allows the actors that make up a given network to speak for themselves. The
reason for this change of tempo, Latour continues, is that, instead of taking a
reasonable position and imposing some order beforehand, ANT claims to be able to
find order much better after having let the actors deploy the full range of
controversies in which they are immersed.1 So-called reasonable positions are
the very thing the slow-moving ANT scholar tries to dispel. Accordingly, Hayden, for
the most part, allows her interlocutors (the scientists, the plant venders, the rural
community members) to speak for themselves, which results in a story of
bioprospecting that is full of abrupt complications and contradictions. One of the
main things Hayden discovers during her extensive time in the field is that the

UNAM scientists have found channels to gather samples and traditional knowledge
without necessarily compensating local and indigenous communities or individuals.
While as an observer on the UNAM plant-gathering trips Hayden witnesses how the
public domain (in the form of public markets, publications, and roadways) is utilized
as an effective way to avoid the messy issue of property rights. As the scientists
explain, they are not doing this solely as a matter of convenience, but because it is
next to impossible to determine who owns either the plants in question or the
traditional knowledge associated with the plants. This ambiguity illustrates how the
neoliberal strategy of establishing patents and intellectual property rights does not
work in the favor of the local and indigenous communities. The plant venders in the
markets are the only local people directly compensated for selling their wares. Here
science seems to working to extend the patenting interests of the U.S. companies
financing aspects of the project, while the questions of local and indigenous
ownership are to a large degree being ignored. The situation also underscores the
fact that for many indigenous people living in rural Mexico, the idea of owning
plants and intellectual property totally contradicts their view of the world. Again,
bioprospecting is as much a channel for the trafficking and expanding the ideals of
neoliberalism, as it is a channel from for the flow of plant extracts. While having
access to these plant-gathering trips allows Hayden to witness science in action and
to establish contacts with venders who serve as her main interlocutors, it also
places her in a compromising position. Because the venders and other people she
encounters came to associate her with UNAMs bioprospecting project, she found
herself at times acting as the projects spokesperson. As such, Hayden is faced with
the question if she was intervening in the flow of bioprospecting or facilitating it.2 To
this end, she states in her introduction: As many critical accounts of ethnographic
work have suggested in other context, the very act of trying to follow the
networks often makes us party to their materialization Many scientists and
activists with whom I spoke in Mexico in the early years of my research had not
heard much about the UNAM prospecting project, if anything at all a situation that
implicitly made me the projects representative in many interviews. (13) Hayden
does not directly address this anxiety of the ethnographer being co-opted or
incorporated into the flow of bioprospecting in the main body of her text, but it is
always present, as readers are constantly reminded of how dependent she is on the
cooperation of the UNAM scientists. However, despite this anxiety, Hayden still
manages to give voice to the concerns and interests of the UNAM scientist along
with her other interlocutors and still present a slow, critical version of
bioprospecting that completely contradicts the polished neoliberal narrative of
letting the free market establish fair competition and proper/reasonable forms of
social and environmental development.