From NO206@hermes.cam.ac.uk Sun Feb 6 12:02:53 2000 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id MAA23722 for ; Sun, 6 Feb 2000 12:02:52 -0800 Received: from red.csi.cam.ac.uk (exim@red.csi.cam.ac.uk [131.111.8.70]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id MAA11090 for ; Sun, 6 Feb 2000 12:02:51 -0800 Received: from mac010.joh.cam.ac.uk ([131.111.142.30]) by red.csi.cam.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 3.13 #1) id 12HXtL-0004pj-00 for indknow@washington.edu; Sun, 06 Feb 2000 20:02:44 +0000 Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2000 20:02:44 +0100 From: NO206@hermes.cam.ac.uk To: indknow@washington.edu Subject: Re: Biodiversity PR (fwd) Message-ID: <436101.3158856164@mac010.joh.cam.ac.uk> X-Mailer: Mulberry (MacOS) [1.3.2.2, s/n S-100001] X-Authenticated: NO206 by imap.hermes.cam.ac.uk X-Licensed-To: University of Cambridge MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit --On Sat, Feb 5, 2000 5:25 pm +0000 "Niall O'Shea" wrote: > David, thank you for your constructive remarks. I am indeed sorry if the > tone of my message seemed implacable towards bioprospecting. E-mail as a > medium is far too conducive to what seem like sweeping statements. I > happen to agree that bioprospecting, in some form, is necessary for the > welfare of the human race and that there are philantrophic motives in it's > origins. Knee-jerk reactionists do everyone including themselves a great > disservice in clinging to a totemic crusade on all bioprospecting being > greed-based and evil. That said, the odds are stacked so heavily and > artificially against developing countries, in terms of debt, trade and > autonomy over resources(a part of which is their own complicity) that is > easy to see how much of bioprospecting, whatever it's original motives, can > hardly escape being marshalled into cycles of iniquity. I found out just > today that the guy who founded Healing Forest Conservancy recently jumped > ship because he felt disillusioned that despite the well-intentioned > objectives of that organisation, he found it to be ultimately > counter-productive and inimical to the needs of indigenous peoples. I can > well imagine how it must seem that social scientists wantonly ride rough > shot over the good work of many scientists in the attempt to garner critical > kudos. I don't intend to let myself be tarred with either brush. > Regards, > Niall > > On Saturday, February 05, 2000, 11:55 AM -0500 "David Casagrande" > wrote: > >> Regarding your request for advice. May I suggest that you not begin >> your research with the a priori assumption that all bioprospecting is >> inherently greed-based (as the tone of your message suggests) and >> look at the true histories of each of the individual projects. You may >> find that some projects were begun by botanists, anthropologists, >> conservationsists and even missionaries with the intention to preserve >> biodiversity and indigenous knowledge, and that large drug companies were >> only brought in as a mechanism to finance these basically altruistic >> schemes. This is a very serious issue. Many lives, careers, cultures and >> potential medical benefits are in jeopardy due to the knee-jerk, >> oversimplified assertions that all bioprospecting is inherently evil, >> which appears to be proliferating without empirical justification. We >> desparately need research such as yours, and we need it to be rigorous and >> objective. >> >> David G. Casagrande >> >> http://www.arches.uga.edu/~bighouse >> Univ. of Georgia >> Dept. of Anthropology >> Baldwin Hall >> Athens, GA 30602-1619 >> tel: 706-542-3980 >> fax: 706-542-3998 >> >> > > .