Fwd: ETC: Nominate Captain Hook Awards for Biopiracy 2004

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ETC: Nominate Captain Hook Awards for Biopiracy 2004

 

15 December 2003

 

Nominate Your Least Favorite Pirate for a 2004 Captain Hook Award!

For Outstanding Achievements in Biopiracy - 2004

 

What's the most outrageous biopiracy case in your country? Who's

ripping off indigenous knowledge in your community? Who's

monopolizing your genes or patenting your plants? Has anyone

trademarked your favorite patron saint? Help put the spotlight on the

Greediest, Most Offensive or Most Dangerous biopirates from across

the globe. Only the most egregious offenders will skulk away as

winners.

 

The Coalition Against Biopiracy (CAB)* will sponsor the Captain Hook

awards ceremony at the Seventh Conference of the Parties (COP7) to

the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Kuala Lumpur,

Malaysia, 9-20 February 2004. It has been more than a decade since

the CBD entered into force, but there's still no meaningful

regulation to stop biopiracy and the notion of " benefit-sharing " is

merely a charade. In 2004, it's still smooth sailing and easy

looting for biopirates who use intellectual property to plunder

genetic resources and pillage traditional knowledge.

 

Past years' winners for infamous and outstanding achievements in

biopiracy have included the US Patent and Trademark Office for

reinstating the Ayahuasca patent; Syngenta for its attempt to

privatize the rice genome; and, of course, repeat offender Monsanto.

The Prince of Liechtenstein won in 2000 for his audacious patent on

Basmati rice and the University of Toledo took a prize for its patent

on Ethiopia's endod. For a complete list of 2002 winners awarded at

COP6 in The Hague, go to:

www.etcgroup.org/documents/captain_hook_awards.pdf

 

The real winners: But it's not all skulls and crossbones: you can

also nominate those institutions, peoples' organizations and

governments that have fended off acts of biopiracy, defeated

predatory patents or defended the intellectual integrity of farmers

and indigenous peoples. The Coalition Against Biopiracy will honour

those who have fought against biopirates with a " Cog " award (so-named

because cogs were ships designed to repel pirate attacks). COMPITCH

and other indigenous peoples' organizations in Mexico won in 2002 for

defeating the US government's $2.5 million bioprospecting project in

Chiapas. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture won for

legally challenging the US patent on Mexico's yellow bean, and the

Indian government and Indian people received an award for challenging

the Basmati patent. To view 2002 Cog winners, go to:

www.etcgroup.org/documents/cog_awards.pdf

 

Here's how to nominate an offender for a Captain Hook Award or a

bio-defender for a Cog Award:

 

Deadline is Wednesday, January 21, 2004.

 

Send a brief description of the case with enough supporting

documentation for purposes of verification to

hook. Nominators may remain anonymous. Once

the nominated case is verified, it will be posted at

www.captainhookawards.org. You can select from the following

categories (or create your own):

 

For Captain Hook Awards:

Greediest

Most Offensive

Most Dangerous

Worst National Behaviour

Worst International Convention

 

For Cog Awards:

Best Individual Advocate

Best Peoples' Defense (institution, civil society organization)

Best Legal Defense

Best National Defense

Most Imaginative

 

 

For further information about biopiracy and the Captain Hook and Cog

Awards, please contact:

 

Silvia Ribeiro, ETC Group, silvia, 52-5555-6326-64 (Mexico)

Hope Shand, ETC Group, hope, 919-960-5223 (USA)

Alejandro Argumedo, Asociación ANDES, slfsal-peru

(51)-84-248-021 (Peru)

Neth Dano, SEARICE, searice, tel: 924-7544 (The Philippines)

 

*The Coalition Against Biopiracy is an informal group of civil

society and peoples' organizations that first came together at the

1995 Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological

Diversity meeting in Jakarta.

 

 

 

 

 

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