ABSTRACT
For many indigenous communities, farmers, groups that maintain traditional practices, and across large populations in the developing world, biopiracy reflects the abuses, disregard and neglect that have long been shown by colonial powers and the industrialized ‘West’. Biopiracy may have important implications for local producers and for research in developing countries and remote regions; in terms of cultural impact, it also reflects a longer history of colonial maltreatment, albeit through different means. The biopiracy cases illustrate an epistemological hypocrisy, whereby scientists utilize traditional knowledge and innovations while simultaneously denigrating such knowledge as unworthy of recognition. Given the injustices rendered, it is hoped that this book encourages the broader recognition of biopiracy and the formal adoption of a definition along the lines of the typology proposed in Chapter 1 (see Box 1.2). In addition, biopiracy needs to be adequately addressed in the patent and broader intellectual property system (for the prevention of ‘non-patent biopiracy’), as well as through appropriate mechanisms for the control and transfer of biodiversity. Alongside technical and legal mechanisms, some re-conceptualizations are also needed, particularly regarding the notion of the ‘public domain’.
