Extracted from Malaysiakini

Extracted from Malaysiakini.com

NGO: Make Orang Asli stakeholders in pharmaceutical industry
Fauwaz Abdul Aziz
12:58:04 PM Jan 6, 2004

Of the RM163.4 billion (US$43 billion) world market value of pharmaceuticals derived from traditional medicines, less than 0.001 percent of the profits are said to go to the indigenous peoples who led the researchers to them.

These figures released in the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Report 2002 are indeed grounds for concern for the indigenous people in Malaysia as well, said Colin Nicholas of the Centre for Orang Asli Concerns.

He believed that unless the Orang Asli are given the opportunity to participate as partners and stakeholders in efforts currently underway to ‘manage’ Malaysia’s forest biological resources for pharmaceutical purposes, they will merely be baited into making more profits for the multi-national bio-tech companies.

Nicholas’ also expressed his regret at the remarks of Deputy Rural Development Minister G Palanivel who was quoted by the New Sunday Times on Jan 4 as saying that the Orang Asli communities’ skills in identifying rare herbs would be put to ‘good use’ and a ‘great asset to the lucrative pharmaceutical industry.’

He said the minister’s comments have made the Orang Asli appear as mere labourers and gatherers of forest products, while failing to address the need to adequately and justly compensate the community for the knowledge that the government or pharmaceutical companies may profit from.

According to Nicholas, British researchers had in 1966 identified about five hundred plants in Malaysia bred by the Orang Asli as having medicinal properties.

Recognise land stake

"It is only now, however, when people are realising the immense financial gains to be reaped from the country’s bio-diversity, that people are beginning to call for the protection and cultivation of such resources and indigenous knowledge of them," he said.

Calling on the government to help the Orang Asli derive a fair share of the benefits, Nicholas said one immediate step that the government should take in addressing the needs and rights of the community is recognising their stake over ancestral land and resources and compensating them adequately for the benefit any party may derive from them.

As far as intellectual property rights, however, existing patent laws in Malaysia are not adequate because, among other reasons, such laws only cover individual property rights, whereas indigenous knowledge of traditional herbs and medicines is owned by the Orang Asli community as a whole and is inalienable.

Another more appropriate scheme for the protection of indigenous knowledge and forest products may be found in the Sui Generis system, said Nicholas

The Sui Generis, proposed in 2001 at a conference on Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Kuala Lumpur, is based on the assumption that any knowledge that is of significant benefit to human societies and communities would in effect disqualify that knowledge from being patented, he explained.

Nicholas said this was among the proposals that will be forwarded by representatives of indigenous groups at the upcoming UN 7th Convention on Biological Diversity to be hosted by Malaysia in February this year.