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02/17/2006:

"African bio-resources 'exploited by West'"

Dozens of Western multinationals have made millions of pounds in profits from exploiting African bio-resources taken from some of the poorest nations on earth, with not a penny offered in return.

Pharmaceutical firms are accused of breaching the United Nations convention on biodiversity, which states that nations have sovereignty over their own natural resources, by scouring continents for samples of unique materials, from plants to bacteria.

A ground-breaking report identifies numerous materials, taken from Africa to Western laboratories, which have developed and patented products worth hundreds of millions of pounds - from a trailing plant beloved of gardeners across Europe to a natural cure for impotence and a microbe used in fading designer jeans.

In some cases companies accept that their product is based on a traditional source and yet there is no evidence the companies have compensated countries from which they took them.

"It's a new form of colonial pillaging," said Beth Burrows, of the US-based Edmonds Institute, the environmental group that published the report. "We have identified a number of cases that require a lot of explanation. The problem is that we have a world [where companies] are used to taking whatever they want from wherever and thinking they are doing it for the good of mankind."
independent.co.uk