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| Monday, December 6, 1999 WRITER: Phil Williams, 706/542-8501, philwpio@uga.edu CONTACT: Brent Berlin, 706/542-1452, obberlin@uga.edu DRUG DISCOVERY AND BIODIVERSITY PROJECT AMONG HIGHLAND MAYA SUBJECT OF MISUNDERSTANDING, ACCORDING UGA PROFESSOR ATHENS, Ga.-- A $2.5 million, five-year-project to study the medicinal value of plants used by the Highland Maya in the Mexican state of Chiapas has been the subject of growing concern among several groups in Mexico -- concern that a scientist leading the project says is misplaced and based on false information. A group of 11 Mayan organizations known together at the Council of Indigenous Traditional Healers and Midwives of Chiapas has criticized the project, calling for its termination and is asking Mayans not to cooperate, according to a Canadian-based environmental organization called the Rural Advancement Foundation International or RAFI. The Council has created widespread concern over the project, according to Brent Berlin, head of the project and Graham Perdue Professor of Anthropology at the University of Georgia and director of UGA's Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. "Many local Highland Maya communities as well as the Mexican government have been supportive of our work thus far and have been very active from the beginning in planning and developing the project, "said Berlin. "We have been as open as possible about the entire project, which was specifically designed to bring economic benefit to the Maya. The confusion over the goals of our work has been disconcerting to say the least." Berlin's project among the Maya (where he has worked as an anthropologist for some 40 years, beginning in 1960) scrupulously conforms to all applicable Mexican laws and even goes beyond the letter of the law to the spirit of the law, he said. In this regard, Berlin reported that Joshua Rosenthal, director of the Biodiversity Program for the National Institutes of Health said that the "The Maya ICBG led by Brent Berlin is an outstanding example of what we are aiming for in our programs. Based in high quality science and a very participatory framework, the projects invests heavily in technology transfer, local institutions, as well as local intellectual and biological resources. I am also very pleased at the way that BERLIN'S GROUP haS worked transparently and vigorously from the beginning to set up a novel equitable benefit-sharing paradigm. Indeed, I think it will be a hard act for anyone to duplicate". Climate, varied terrain and rainfall make the tropics a botanical garden of vast riches. While development has brought economic strength to the United States and Europe, it has also brought ecological devastation in places, leaving Third World countries with the greatest diversity of plants that could hold the secrets of curing diseases. Only a small number of plants have been tested for medicinal value by scientists, however, despite the fact that indigenous peoples have used them for centuries. The international team of scientists, led by researchers from the University of Georgia, are examining the pharmacological value a group of plants that grow in the homelands of the Highland Tzeltal and Tzotzil Maya of the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The Maya International Cooperative Biodiversity Group project was awarded last January to the University of Georgia by a consortium that includes the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the U. S. Agency for International Development. As part of the NIH's Fogerty International Center International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups Program, six currently funded research teams are part of an innovative program on drug discovery, biodiversity conservation, and sustained economic development working in eight countries of Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia. "We hope to identify bioactive agents that can contribute to the economic development and biodiversity conservation of the Highland Maya," said Berlin. "We will discover, isolate and evaluate plants that might have medicinal value and promote the use of these species in the local Maya health system. It is possible some can be used to develop the local economy through their use as natural biological control agents in traditional agricultural production. Some may even be candidates as commercially viable phytomedicinals." UGA is cooperating in the project with a Mexican university, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), and Molecular Nature Ltd., a small natural products-discovery company based in Wales. Just how potential profits from such efforts might be shared with the Maya is at the heart of protests against the project. Calling the efforts "bioprospecting," and "biopiracy," the Council of Healers has, according to a press release put out by RAFI on Dec.1, "appealed to national and state authorities to suspend this project. Now we are also appealing to all indigenous peoples to refuse to allow the researchers of ECOSUR to remove plants and information from our communities." In fact the agreement on Benefits Sharing and Protection of Intellectual Property Rights, adopted by the parties to the ICBG, provides that "compensation must be made to the Maya of the Highlands of Chiapas in connection with the marketing of any product derived from biological materials or indigenous knowledge obtained from the study area." This provision is consistent with the Convention on Biological Diversity, which requires that participating parties provide just compensation for the contributions of developing countries in any commercialization of products developed from the biological materials obtained from a country, regardless of whether there is a patent or other intellectual property protection. Because of the long periods of drug development and marketing involved to bring a product discovery to fruition, many years will pass before the financial rewards derived from commercialization will be distributed to the participating Highland Maya communities; therefore, the ICBG Agreement on Benefit Sharing, signed by all the parties, states that "the project must develop alternatives to generate and share benefits, including those relating to improved health, conservation and sustainable use of biological resources, and alternative forms of economic growth as a reflection of the ICBG's goals of just compensation." Berlin said that further agreements to implement the general provisions of the Agreement on Benefit Sharing will be negotiated by ECOSUR, the University of Georgia and the UGA Research Foundation, Molecular Nature Ltd. and a non-profit trust established under Mexican law called the Promotion de los Derechos de Proprietad de los Mayas de los Altos de Chiapas know by its acronym, Promaya. Under the terms of the Agreement on Benefit Sharing, any transfer of biological samples and related information outside of Mexico will be governed by Mexican law and will be accomplished through a material transfer agreement, which has been approved by all parties, including the Promaya. "The most ironic thing of all is why this particular project should be attacked," said Berlin, "when there are so many groups collecting plants of medicinal value who have not made the extensive efforts we have made to protect both biodiversity to make sure that the indigenous people benefit economically."(No plant collections for bioassay analysis, for example, have yet been made, in spite of claims to the contrary, he said.) The controversy began Sept. 11 with an article in a newspaper in the Chiapas town of San Cristobal de las Casas reporting concerns of the Maya groups about the project. Berlin said that laws concerning the collecting and use of plants with potential biotechnological value are only now being developed in many countries, which are trying to prevent the kind of colonial "bio-pillaging" that took place in generations past. Some countries have effectively ruled their entire biota off-limits to those wishing to determine if native species have medicinal properties, while others, such as Mexico, are developing regulations regarding how such projects can proceed. In order to show that the project is indeed progressive in its efforts to support the Maya themselves and to address criticisms of the project, the project's managers held an open house at ECOSUR on Oct. 29 to discuss at length all its plans for biodiscovery and economic development. "It was a wonderful success," said Berlin, "and almost 200 Maya attended. We openly discussed all aspects of the project, and we had the unambiguous support of nearly everyone who attended." Since the first major press release, efforts have been made by the project to arrange for private discussions with members of the council, attended by neutral moderators approved by all parties, and with an agreed upon agenda, where some kind of mutual resolution might be worked out. The Council has continued to refuse to meet under these conditions, said Berlin, and has insisted on a meeting open to the public and press, with no agenda, and with their demands made known only at the beginning of the meeting. Berlin has declined such a meeting, sensing that such an event could "easily deteriorate into a circus." "The loss of biodiversity is particularly problematic for Indian communities in tropical areas," said Berlin. "We know that the remaining biodiversity and associated ethnobiological knowledge constitutes a potentially rich resource for local economic development. The real challenge for scientists working on this topic in the next century is to develop benefit-sharing programs that will enhance the long-term well-being of those local communities that possess this knowledge. This is what the Maya ICBG aims to accomplish. We will implement this goal, in spite of the present difficulties."
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