Fwd: ETC: Another Origin of the Species in the Galapagos?

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ETC: Another Origin of the Species in the Galapagos?

 

 

ETC Group

News Release

March 11, 2004

www.etcgroup.org

 

 

Playing God in the Galapagos:

J. Craig Venter, Master and Commander of Genomics, on Global

Expedition to Collect Microbial Diversity for Engineering Life

 

The ETC Group releases a new Communiqué today that focuses on J. Craig Venter's

controversial ocean expedition that is circumventing the globe to collect

microbial diversity from gene-rich seas and shores every 200 miles.

 

The full text of the 8-page Communiqué is available on the Internet:

www.etcgroup.org

 

J. Craig Venter, the genomics mogul and scientific wizard who recently created a

unique living organism from scratch in a matter of days, is searching for

pay-dirt in biodiversity-rich marine environments around the world. Venter's

yacht, the Sorcerer II, is now steaming toward the South Pacific after

collecting land and marine microbes from Maine to Mexico, Panama, Chile, and -

most recently - on Ecuador's famous Galapagos Islands.

 

Since 2002, Venter's Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives (IBEA) has

been awarded $12 million from the " Genomes to Life " program of the US

government's Department of Energy (DOE) to create new life forms in the

laboratory that could be engineered to produce energy or clean up greenhouse

gases. Exotic microbes - such as those found in the Galapagos - are the raw

materials for creating new energy sources and new life forms.

 

" In the Sorcerer's wake, governments are left with unresolved ethical and

ecological concerns about the human-made creation of novel life forms, troubling

questions about public domain diversity and private patenting, and huge gaps in

the capacity of society and the inter-governmental community to address new

technologies, " said Silvia Ribeiro of ETC Group.

 

Civil society organizations in Ecuador were stunned to learn that Venter's

itinerant research team, with funding from the US government, has already

completed " extensive sampling " in the Galapagos and that samples have been

shipped to the United States for sequencing. Acción Ecológica, an environmental

advocacy organization based in Quito, charges that Venter's expedition is

biopiracy because the export permit granted to Venter was not authorized by the

appropriate government authority, because there was no public consultation, and

because nothing prevents Ecuadorian resources from being privatized through

monopoly patents at some later point. They also believe that Venter's research

raises profound social and ethical questions.

 

" Venter's microbe-hunting expedition threatens to turn a nation's biomaterials

from public domain goods into patentable, private commodities, " said Hope Shand

of ETC Group. Although IBEA - one of Venter's three non-profit institutes and

the one leading the initiative - has promised not to patent the raw microbes it

collects and sequences, patents could be claimed on modified microbes or on new

life forms engineered from the collected microbes.

 

The maverick US biologist's expedition has already discovered more new genes

than scientists knew to exist including nearly 800 photoreceptor genes that

convert sunlight to energy. Venter's team is also collecting microbes that

survive and thrive in harsh environments (extremophiles) such as in volcanoes or

hot sulfur vents on the ocean floor.

 

According to ETC Group, the voyage of the Sorcerer II symbolizes the convergence

of two major technological trends. As Venter and biotechnologists build new life

from stripped-down microbes, nanotechnologists are busy building biological

machines - or hybrid machines employing both organic and inorganic matter - from

the bottom-up. The two trends converge on the shifting shores of

nanobiotechnology - the current darling of US venture capitalists. The

implications are breathtaking: not just new species and new biodiversity - but

life forms that are human-directed and self-replicating. Nanobiotechnology is

moving science from genetically-modified organisms to atomically-modified

organisms.

 

" The IBEA initiative challenges national sovereignty and raises more doubts

about the already problematic access and benefit-sharing work of the Convention

on Biological Diversity (CBD), " said Ribeiro. " More significantly, Venter's work

poses ethical and environmental concerns about the use of biodiversity to build

new life forms from scratch. "

 

The United Nations must create a new mechanism that will make it possible for

the international community to monitor the development of new technologies whose

introduction could affect (positively and/or negatively) human health, the

environment, or society's well-being. ETC Group believes this could best be

achieved by the creation of an International Convention for the Evaluation of

New Technologies (ICENT) at the UN. At present there is no intergovernmental

body that has the capacity to monitor and evaluate trends in science and

technology and their far-reaching societal impacts.

 

" Civil society agendas must urgently incorporate debate and action on the

orientation of science and the impact of new technologies, " said Hope Shand of

ETC Group. " In the end, it doesn't matter how laudable Venter's goal; the

creation of human-made machines - whether biological or non-biological or some

combination - will have profound implications for the environment and our

definition of life itself. "

 

The full text of the Communiqué, " Playing God in the Galapagos, " is available on

the ETC Group web site: www.etcgroup.org

 

For more information, contact:

 

Hope Shand, ETC Group, (USA) tel: +919 960-5223; email: hope

Silvia Ribeiro, ETC Group (Mexico) tel: +52 5555 6326 64;

email: silvia

 

 

 

 

 

 

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