Wednesday, 15 February 2006

Genetic Smuggling


Published in Kathmandu Infotiser on February 2006


Smuggling of drug is common news, but have you ever heard of genetic smuggling? Nepal’s rich biodiversity has been quite a business for illegal traders of plant and animal parts to the outside markets. Our country has a wealth of natural herbs, some rare plants and animals but due to the lack of proper monitoring, we are conditioned to bear immense genetic loss, which could do a great deal in uplifting the national economy. Genetic smuggling is a serious issue but it has barely been raised. So, we all should be aware of this term and check this illegal trade in a time to preserve out natural identity.

Le’s consider a surprising and possible example here. A foreigner takes a grain of rice or a seed of any indigenous plant form out country. He will neither be checked not be objected to carry the plant or animal samples with him to another country. Then he cultures those samples at this place and thus the whole plant or animal is regenerated through any biological techniques now available. And it gets patented in that country and we lose our claim on that particular plant or animal. This kind of loss is considered as the genetic loss or genetic smuggling which is quite an in-thing taking place here but not many of us are aware of this trend and the possible consequences that could follow.

The common example has been the patenting of Basmati rice and other 10 indigenous herbs of India by the United States. Basmati rice was patented by rice Tec Inc. of USA. Similarly, MNC of USA had patented bitter gourd, jamun, gurmur and brinjal. The patent was granted on edible herbal compositions for anti-diabetic properties. It comprised mixtures of at least two Indian herbs selected from a group of few herbs such as jamun bitter gourd, brinjal, and gurmur as ant diabetic agents to reduce sugar. Then India could only use the mixture inside the country but could not export the similar mixture to any other country. All those above-mentioned herbs originated in India and are now naturalized through out the neighbouring countries. Extracts of seeds, stem, leaves and flowers of Jamun reduce the blood sugar level thus helping to prevent diabetes. Similarly, bitter gourds, gurmur, have been used as remedy for diabetes. Later on, India filed the case to cancel the patenting and got the patents of basmati rice cancelled. Nepal occupies only 0.1 per cent of the total land on earth while it contains over 2 per cent of the world’s flowering plants, 8 per cent of birds, and 4 per cent of mammals. There are 225 species of mammals, 879 species of birds, 200 species of fishes, 147 species of reptiles, 43 species of amphibians, insects and other animals that make Nepal one of the riches countries in the world in terms of biodiversity. As we know, Yak is an animal found in Himalayan region that’s capable of living in cold regions for several days without food. It has been crossed with cattle to produce Chauri. Yak is one of the indigenous animals of Nepal. The cold resisting genes of Yak is our genetic ornament. Such genes can also be transferred to other organisms if needed and this trend of taking plants and animals’ samplings from Nepal without any legal impositions is making us lose much on biodiversity and nature.

Another examples could be vultures that have high vision power. The genes of these vultures are our genetic wealth which should be conserved but unfortunately due to the lack of awareness, the number of vultures in our country is fast decreasing. Recently, India and Bhutan applied for the patent rights on yak cheese. Hence, we could be losing our own indigenous animals, like Chauri too.

Now the questions arise; are Nepali organisms not grown and patented in other countries? Is Nepal in a position to recover those kinds of genetic and biological losses? The answer would be NO. Nepal is not in a position to solve its own internal problems. The political instability and other domestic problems have been pushing Nepal backwards and if the genetic resources are not timely monitored, genetic loss will evolve as a serious push-back to the national economy.