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Endangered species? New rules may threaten joint projects with foreign researchers (above). Credit: ANDREW MCROBB

Brazilian scientists are worried that a law aimed at protecting the ‘theft’ of genetic resources by foreigners — particularly from the biodiversity-rich Amazon region — could become a major obstacle to future research programmes in the area.

The law, which is being debated in the Brazilian Congress, is intended to meet the country's commitments following its ratification of the biodiversity convention signed during the Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro.

As in India and Africa, the biodiversity issue has become a battleground for opposing political views. But Brazil's scientific community is in a stronger position to work in a genuine partnership with foreign researchers, and this is leading to a more pragmatic stance than that found in India and Africa.

The government of Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso is seeking relatively liberal legislation, which would provide scope for negotiation between institutions representing the domestic and foreign researchers involved in the discovery. Under this legislation, the institutions would be able to negotiate the patent rights to any genetic resources discovered that proved to have commercial value.

Left-wing opposition parties are fighting for a more nationalistic law to halt what they describe as ‘genetic colonialism’ from First World countries and their research institutions. Government officials fear that if this sentiment wins the day — which many feel is likely — Congress may create a genetic equivalent to the protectionist legislation on information technology, which was seen by many as having been an obstacle to the development of the Brazilian computer industry in the recent past.

The biodiversity bill has been under discussion since 1995. Initially proposed by Marina Silva, a senator from the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers Party) who represents the Amazonian state of Acre, it has already served as a basis for legislation passed by the Acre state Congress in July 1997.

This legislation is considered by many researchers to be almost xenophobic, as it forbids foreign researchers from entering the Amazonian forest without a formal agreement involving Brazilian researchers as partners. It was proposed by state deputy Edvaldo Magalhaes, from the Communist Party of Brazil, who warned that the country needed to defend itself against “a sort of new colonialism”.

The political debate has been particularly stirred up by press stories about foreign researchers in Amazonia who have sought patents abroad based on micro-organisms and genetic material whose existence they learned about from Amazonian Indians.

One British chemist, for example, was said to have sought to patent the substance rupununine, obtained from the bibiri tree (Octotea rodioei) found in the frontier region between Brazil and Guiana and known to have contraceptive properties; and cumaniol, a poison made from cassava leaves which can stimulate the central nervous system. Both substances are used by the Wapishana Indians of Roraima.

A new intellectual property law, which still needs to be approved by the president, already includes an article protecting “traditional and ethnical knowledge”. But scientists fear that if the genetic resources law is too restrictive — for example, by making it a criminal offence to take genetic material out of the country without official permission — it will in practice scare away foreign researchers who might otherwise come to work in Brazil.

“Just outlawing won't help. We won't even know what's being stolen,” says Sergio Henrique Ferreira, a biomedical researcher at the University of São Paulo and president of the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (SBPC). “The major issue is the need to protect intellectual property.”

Glaci Zancan, a biologist at the Federal University of Paraná and a vice-president of SBPC, adds: “All we need is a simple clause: if something patentable arises from the research, then we'll negotiate over how the rights to it should be shared.”

“The most important point is to ensure that the terms of joint projects are properly negotiated in advance,” says Marcio de Miranda Santos, head of the Research and Development Department at Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation). “There would be no point in having an excellent law but second-rate scientists.”

Maria José Amstalden Sampaio, a researcher at Embrapa who also acts as an adviser on legislative affairs, says that, despite some minor improvements since 1995, the proposed law is still too complex and detailed, making compliance virtually impossible.

For example, she points out that the text of the law even includes model contracts covering access to genetic material. “This should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis,” she says, rather than by a single form of contract.

“The law is not even flexible enough to distinguish between the different needs in agriculture or biomedical research.”

Sampaio says that she has been following closely what other countries have been doing. “Take the Philippines law, which is so tightly written that it makes negotiations quite difficult.” She has detected this same approach in other countries. “I like to joke with Colombians: OK, if you close your forest [to researchers], then we will open ours, and everybody will come here”.

According to many Brazilian scientists, another threat to the future ability of Brazilian researchers to develop the country's genetic resources is recent cuts in the number of scholarships provided by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Amazon research attracts most of the foreign scientists seeking to carry out research in Brazil. “Sometimes it is difficult to find enough Brazilian personnel at the same level to meet the demands,” says Renate Stille, head of the Science and Technology Division at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Already under Brazilian federal law, any foreign scientist wanting to work in the country as part of what the law calls an ‘expedition’ must be accompanied by, and confer co-authorship to, Brazil researchers. Field activities performed by foreign researchers are considered to be scientific expeditions, says the Ministry of Science and Technology, and thus are covered by the regulation.