Quick Reads

Genómica, biodiversidad y aprendices de brujo

Craig Venter se hizo famoso en todo el mundo cuando en el año 2000 anunció que había completado el primer borrador del mapa genético humano. El 13 de noviembre de 2003, anunció que la fundación de investigación creada por él, el Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives (IBEA), había logrado construir en 14 días un virus bacteriófago, partiendo de cero. Actualmente se encuentra recolectando biodiversidad microbiana en diversos países, bajo condiciones legales muy sospechosas y sin esclarecer qué piensa hacer con los genes encontrados.

Captain Hook Awards for Biopiracy 2006

Captain Hook and fellow crooks are in Curitiba where cogs* are keeping the COPs in line at the UN’s Biodiversity Convention

The Coalition Against Biopiracy exposed the globe's nastiest biopirates and rewarded the most steadfast resistors at the Captain Hook Awards on 24 March 2006 during the meeting of the 8th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Curitiba, Brazil. This ETC Group Communique provides a detailed description of the 2006 award winners.

Issue:

After more than a decade of negotiations, the CBD has yet to provide meaningful regulations to stop biopiracy – the monopolization of genetic resources and knowledge taken from the farming communities and peoples that have developed and nurtured those resources. The Captain Hook Awards for Biopiracy are given out at the meeting of the CBD’s COP to draw international attention to the Convention’s failure to put human rights above monopoly rights and for continuing to propagate the myth that equitable benefit sharing is achievable in the context of predatory patent regimes. Cog awards are given to those institutions, peoples’ organizations, governments and individuals who have fostered real opposition to biopiracy, defeated predatory patents or defended the intellectual and cultural integrity of farmers and Indigenous Peoples.

*In the Middle Ages, cogs were small ships built with high sides to make them less vulnerable to pirate attacks.

New Report on Corporate Power - Oligopoly, Inc. 2005

As governments at the 6th WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong bristle with the thorny politics of trade, the report that ETC Group releases today, Oligopoly, Inc. 2005, serves as a reminder that what looks like buying and selling between countries is most often the redistribution of capital among subsidiaries of the same parent multinational corporation.

¿Dónde quedó la bolita de la contaminación?

La industria explota un nuevo estudio sobre maíz transgénico en México

Los defensores de la biotecnología industrial están usando un nuevo estudio científico -que no encontró evidencias de contaminación de maíz transgénico en un área de un estado de México (Oaxaca)- para afirmar que el maíz nativo nunca estuvo amenazado y que si lo estuvo alguna vez, la contaminación se evaporó milagrosamente. Un representante de los agronegocios en México declaró incluso que "con este estudio se allana el camino para poder iniciar las siembras comerciales de maíz genéticamente modificado"

Según Silvia Ribeiro, del Grupo ETC en México "No sorprende que la industria use los resultados del estudio para servir sus propios intereses -como "prueba" de que la contaminación ya no existe y que se deberían extender los cultivos transgénicos a todas partes, incluso en los centros de origen. Las comunidades indígenas y campesinas están completamente en desacuerdo con esa interpretación que hace la industria para justificar sus cultivos contaminantes."

Industry Exploits New Study on GM Contamination in Mexico

The Genetic Shell Game, or, Now you see it! Now you don't!

According to Silvia Ribeiro of ETC Group in Mexico: "It's no surprise that the industry is using the findings to serve its own interests - as 'proof' that contamination no longer exists and that GM crops should have free reign everywhere, even in the South's centers of crop genetic diversity. Indigenous and farming communities vigorously disagree with the biotech industry's self-serving interpretation of the study."

According to peasant communities in Oaxaca, the new findings are not terribly surprising. Baldemar Mendoza of UNOSJO (Union of Organisations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca) - who lives in the region covered by the new study - said, "We took samples in 3 of the 18 communities that the new report mentions (San Juan Ev. Analco, Ixtlan and Santa Maria Jaltianguis) and our results were also negative in those three communities." Mendoza points out that the geographic area sampled by the new study is small and the 18 communities are predominantly forest communities, which means that their main activity is not planting maize. Mendoza also points out, "The new study doesn't refer to any other part of Mexico where contamination has been found but some in the media are already making the false claim that 'there is no contamination in the whole state of Oaxaca or even all of Southern Mexico.'"

Las patentes de nanotecnología: más allá de la naturaleza

Implicaciones para el Sur global

Veinticinco años después de que la industria biotecnológica obtuvo luz verde para el patentamiento de la vida, la nanotecnología codicia ahora los ladrillos constructores de todo lo existente.

En el 25 aniversario del caso Diamond vs Chakrabarty*, la decisión de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de Estados Unidos (16 de junio de 1980) que abrió las compuertas al patentamiento de organismos vivos, el Grupo ETC publica un nuevo informe, "Las patentes de nanotecnología: más allá de la naturaleza."

ETC's Report on Nanotechnology and Intellectual Property

Nanotech's "Second Nature" Patents

Twenty-five years after the biotech industry got the green light to patent life, nanotech goes after the building blocks of life.

On the 25th anniversary of Diamond vs. Chakrabarty,* the US Supreme Court's landmark decision (June 16, 1980) that opened the floodgates to the patenting of living organisms, ETC Group releases a new report, "Nanotech's 'Second Nature' Patents."

Canadá pone en peligro las negociaciones sobre responsabilidad en biotecnología

La entrega tardía de la visa a importante diplomático deja en suspenso las negociaciones sobre bioseguridad en Montreal

Ottawa. El Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher de Etiopía, científico africano de primer nivel y negociador del Protocolo de Cartagena sobre bioseguridad, recibió su visa para entrar a Canadá este martes muy tarde, tiempo de Etiopía. El Dr.

Canada Jeopardizes Biotech Liability Talks

Belated Visa for Africa's Top Diplomat leaves UN's Montreal Biosafety negotiations in suspense

Ottawa - Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher of Ethiopia, Africa's chief scientist and negotiator for the Cartagena (biosafety) Protocol, received his Canadian visa late Tuesday evening (May 2005) Ethiopian time. Dr. Tewolde, who is scheduled to be in the crop biotech liability negotiations tomorrow morning, May 25 2005, in Montreal, has his bags packed and is awaiting a revised plane ticket that - even under ideal circumstances - could only get him to Montreal in time for the final day of the controversial set of UN negotiations (May 27). After extended discussions over Canada's Victoria Day holiday on Monday, a visa arrived in Ethiopia from the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi Tuesday.

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