{"id":11953,"date":"2015-05-28T13:16:20","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T13:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cnpem.staging.wpengine.com\/?p=11953"},"modified":"2022-01-21T16:57:04","modified_gmt":"2022-01-21T19:57:04","slug":"brazil-decriminalizes-efforts-to-turn-its-biota-into-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cnpem.br\/en\/brazil-decriminalizes-efforts-to-turn-its-biota-into-gold\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil decriminalizes efforts to turn its biota into gold"},"content":{"rendered":"

Science Magazine<\/a>, May\u00a022nd 2015<\/p>\n

Herton Escobar<\/p>\n

S\u00c3O PAULO, BRAZIL\u2014<\/strong>When Carlos Jared tried to ship a jar of dead velvet worms collected in Brazil\u2019s Atlantic Forest to a colleague in Germany in 2006, he had no plans to derive a drug or other product from the creatures. He just wanted to probe the reproductive system of a rare invertebrate that gives birth to live young. But Brazilian authorities denounced him as a \u201cbiopirate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The evolutionary biologist at the Instituto Butantan in S\u00e3o Paulo had run afoul of a law aiming to clamp down on what Brazil perceived as rampant pillaging of its biological resources. Jared hadn\u2019t filled out all the paperwork required under law MP 2186, so the worms were confiscated. Worse was yet to come. \u201cThey dragged my name through the mud. It was a psychological massacre,\u201d he says. It took him 6 years to get another permit for fieldwork, and he is still fighting in court thousands of dollars in fines.<\/p>\n

Jared is not the only scientist to run afoul of draconian regulations, sometimes because of nothing more than a clerical oversight. \u201cBiodiversity was deemed so valuable that nobody was allowed to research it anymore,\u201d says Eduardo Pagani, drug development manager at the Brazilian Biosciences National Laboratory in Campinas. \u201cThey locked it in a safe and criminalized anyone who tried to work with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But after years of wrangling over how to fix the law, in which officials sought to balance the interests of scientists, the agricultural industry, and biotech firms with those of indigenous populations demanding compensation for traditional knowledge, Brazil President Dilma Rousseff on 20 May signed a law that is raising hopes among scientists. Like its predecessor, the new \u201cbiodiversity law\u201d regulates research on \u201cgenetic resources\u201d: an all-encompassing term covering everything from genes and proteins to oils and fragrances. It sets rules for sharing benefits with indigenous peoples when R&D leads to a product, such as a drug, shampoo, energy drink, or industrial enzyme, while eliminating bureaucratic hassles and encouraging biodiversity research. Scientists will no longer be \u201cmolested\u201d or \u201cbullied\u201d by unreasonable regulation, science minister Aldo Rebelo said on Wednesday while unveiling the law.<\/p>\n

The scientific community has greeted the new law with a sigh of relief. \u201cIt\u2019s an enormous improvement from what we have now,\u201d says Helena Nader, president of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science in S\u00e3o Paulo. \u201cWe hope this will get scientists and industry excited about working with biodiversity again. There is a lot of untapped potential there,\u201d adds Eliana Fontes, a biosafety expert at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corp. in Bras\u00edlia and a former president of the Genetic Heritage Management Council (CGEN), the legal body that was created to regulate and enforce MP 2186, now superseded by the biodiversity law.<\/p>\n

When MP 2186 came on the books in 2001, its intentions were good. It was passed in response to a contract between the nonprofit company Bio-Amazonia and Novartis that gave the European drug giant exclusive rights to research, patent, and sell products derived from microbes collected in the Brazilian Amazon. (The agreement drew a public outcry and was annulled.) While MP 2186\u2019s goal was to combat biopiracy, its wording cast suspicion on even standard research practices involving life forms. \u201cIt was so difficult to get permits that I seriously considered not doing research in Brazil anymore,\u201d says Emilio Bruna, an ecologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville who studies habitat fragmentation in the Amazon and the Cerrado. Two of his students moved their projects to Costa Rica and Ecuador.<\/p>\n

Amendments to MP 2186 gradually eased restrictions on basic research. But prospecting for natural compounds remained a daunting challenge. Before starting research, scientists and companies had to get permission from CGEN and sign a benefit-sharing contract with the indigenous group identified with a particular resource. \u201cHow can you sign a contract for a product when you don\u2019t know if it\u2019s going to work, or even if it\u2019s going to exist?\u201d asks Paulo S\u00e9rgio Beir\u00e3o, a biochemist at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte.<\/p>\n

Under the new law, Brazilian scientists need not ask CGEN for permission to do research. All they must do is register their project in a database and document permission from the appropriate indigenous group. Contracts and other legal matters will come into play only if research leads to a product. \u201cA clear distinction is made now between scientific research and technological development for commercial purposes,\u201d says Francine Leal, an environmental lawyer in Curitiba who has consulted on the law. Foreign scientists are prohibited from prospecting for genetic resources in Brazil, unless they are part of a company or institution that strikes a partnership with a Brazilian counterpart.<\/p>\n

The law is getting a cool reception from indigenous and other local groups, who believe the rules of access to traditional knowledge and benefit sharing are skewed in favor of companies. \u201cThe law moves in the right direction for science and technology,\u201d says Carlos Joly, a plant ecologist at the University of Campinas and a key figure in the regulation of biodiversity research in Brazil, \u201cbut there are still major problems with it.\u201d For instance, he says, the law is blurry about the rights of indigenous and local communities to withhold access to traditional knowledge, if they felt an agreement would not benefit them.<\/p>\n

Jared, at least, would have fared better under the new law, which abolishes the case-by-case permits for shipments abroad: It only requires noting them in a registry. \u201cThe spirit of the law,\u201d Fontes says, \u201cis to trust researchers.\u201d But for Jared, the moment may have passed. He can retrieve his velvet worms from the University of S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s zoology museum, where they were deposited for safekeeping, but the German colleague he hoped to collaborate with has long since retired.<\/p>\n

Repercuss\u00e3o: New Leader<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Science Magazine, May\u00a022nd 2015 Herton Escobar S\u00c3O PAULO, BRAZIL\u2014When Carlos Jared tried to ship a jar of dead velvet worms collected in Brazil\u2019s Atlantic Forest to a colleague in Germany…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1163,179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clipping-cnpem","category-clipping-lnbio","category-1163","category-179","description-off"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBrazil decriminalizes efforts to turn its biota into gold - CNPEM<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cnpem.br\/brazil-decriminalizes-efforts-to-turn-its-biota-into-gold\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Brazil decriminalizes efforts to turn its biota into gold - 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