Subj:         Patenting nature: PLEASE COMMENT
Date:   01-08-01 15:45:52 EDT
From:   [log in to unmask] (Jim Diamond)
Sender: [log in to unmask] (Biotech Forum)
Reply-to:   [log in to unmask] (Biotech Forum)
To: [log in to unmask]

       I don't know how many of you may have been following this situation
which has to do both with life patents.  Here (message below), organizations
which have been working hard on this are appealing for you to PLEASE COMMENT
to the National Park Service -- the deadline is Friday the 10th.  Address and
instructions, as well as my own letter as a sample, are below.
       Among points to be made are that environmental impacts on our national
parks can be great, even though no removal of lumber or minerals is taking
place -- life patents based commercial products may be released into the
environment and may harm nature; they may not be recallable; "benefits
sharing" agreements do not evaluate the risks, and the risks need to be
evaluated for every such agreement.  Just one such analysis regarding one
gene patent can't predict future risks, and such risks should not be taken at
all by our National Park Service, which should be guarding against risks to
nature.

COMMENT ON PRIVITIZATION OF U.S. NATIONAL PARKS!!
Deadline:  August 10

The Edmonds Institute, International Center for Technology Assessment,
Alliance for Wild Rockies, and Phil Knight - took the National Park Service
(NPS) to court over what was called the Yellowstone case. The case involved;
a deal NPS made with Diversa Corporation for the extraction, development,
patenting, and commercialization of living organisms from the oldest of our
national parks: Yellowstone.  Imbedded in that case were concerns about
privatization of our natural resources, the meaning of the national parks
(i.e., part of the national commons), bioprospecting/biopiracy, NEPA,
inducing public complicity in the patenting of life, denial of transparency
and democratic process in deal-making for biodiversity on public lands,
exploitation of the biodiversity that we have been given to steward in our
national parks, use of Cooperative Research and Development Agreements
(CRADAs) for making deals for the "development" of products from public
biodiversity (CRADAs allow the use of confidential business information to
deny the public knowledge of the financial details of the deals made for
public biodiversity), appropriate mechanisms of funding national parks, and
on and on.

The first part of the case was won. The court found that the National Park
Service (NPS) had to do an environmental assessment of the deal they made
with Diversa for biodiversity in Yellowstone National Park.

In late June, the NPS put out an "environmental scoping newsletter" in which
they invited comments on the proposed scope of their environmental
assessment. They are looking for our comments on the issues to be addressed
in the environmental assessment and the potential impacts of using or not
using benefits-sharing agreements in the parks.

Although the objects of desire in the Diversa case were microorganisms, this
will set the precedent for all the rest in all the parks - from trees and
plants to Smokey Bear (and genetic parts thereof).

SAMPLE LETTER:

To
Benefits-Sharing Team
National Park Service
P.O. Box 168
Yellowstone NP, WY 82190

FILL IN YOUR SAMPLE LETTER
make it not more than 2 paragraphs.

       Thank you for the chance to comment.  I feel that the wealth which is
nature should not be privitized in the form of patents or "benefits sharing"
of any kind.  While bioprospecting may not appear to involve physical
property, I believe that privitizing portions of the shared genetic heritage
of our planet harms both 1) my rights to maintain an ethical, non-commercial
relationship to the wealth of life in nature, and 2) the rights of nature to
exist in and for itself.  Further, genetic material might, using the right to
commercial exploitation, be released into the environment to the detriment of
nature.  This risk, and not just any possible benefits, must be evaluated for
each and every agreement and location, and there must be provisions to end
any agreement where harm to nature can be foreseen.
             Sincerely,

end with signature, address, date

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