The skewed exchange of resources between the old and the new worlds that existed during colonial times has remained virtually unchanged.

Coloured cotton from Peru is about to be patented in the United States, where it is already being produced - and the rural people who maintained the species for centuries have seen no benefits.

An Australian researcher on his way home from Maracaibo, Venezuela, stuffed a few samples of a weed growing along the landing strips into his pockets - and the plant is now grown as summer forage for livestock in Australia.

"But if we want a new kind of grass to fatten up our livestock, we have to import the seeds and pay for the technological development of the species," said the Latin American Economic System (Sela) director of development, Antonio Leone.

Sela advocates a permanent forum for Latin America and the Caribbeans to facilitateconsultation and coordination regarding the use of and access to genetic resources, an idea that authorites from throughout the region will discuss in Bogota, Colombia.

That will be a preparatory meeting for the fourth international technical conference on genetic resources organised by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to be held in Leipzig, Germany.

The Leipzig conference is to come up with a plan of action for research into the preservation and use and access to biological resources. It will be a golden opportunity for Latin America to stress the weight of its biological wealth.

"A single tree in Colombias Darien jungle can have as much biodiversity as all Switzerland," says Francisco Astudillo, a Venezuelan expert in property rights.

The Artdean mountain range and the Amazon jungle are home to to more than half of the worlds species of flora and fauna. To date, some 4,38,000 species of plants of economic and social interest hve been registered in the region.

The Convention onBiodiversity, signed during the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, recognises national sovereignty over biological resources, while establishing the need for conservation. It is also designed to eliminate the idea that government and companies can freely exploit such resources.

"The first thing we need is an inventory of our genetic wealth, something that is difficult to carry out due to a lack of resources," said Leone. "A laboratory in an industrialised country can do a complete screening of a plant. We dont have many such labs in the region."

But even if such laboratories existed, the process would be extremely costly. "The research that precedes the launching of a new medicine extracted from a plant can cost $250 million," said Astudillo.

He stressed that Latin Americas position should not be interpreted as an effort to prevent the use of its genetic resources for the good of humanity, but rather "as a quest for sharing in the benefits".

Latin America and Africa "are demanding that the benefitsfrom genetic development of our biodiversity reach the indigeneous and rural caretakers, as well as the developing countries who offer such resources," he added.

"Its not a question of an exchange of biodiversity between us and the North, which would prolong the idea that biological diversity is free for the taking. We should be trading biological resources for the technology and capital needed to develop it," Astudillo said.

As an example of such co-operation, Astudillo mentioned an agreement between Merck, a US laboratory, and the Costa Rican Institute of Biodiversity to share the labour as well as the benefits reaped from the search for resources in the central American country.

However, many environment groups question the Merck-Costa Rica pattern of accords.

The North will continue its search for new genetic resources, based on its own goals for agricultural growth, such as a 1.8 tonne/year per hectare increase in corn production by the year 2005, and one tonne a year for potatoes.

Leone andAstudillo stressed thaet to meet demands for food, Latin America - with nearly 200 million people living below the poverty line - needs to come up with a strategy that would make them co-owners of the highest-yield species.

The Andean Pact nations - Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela - are working on common norms that would regulate access to and the use of theft plant resources, and the idea has also been taken up by Brazil, Guyana and Surinam within the framework lof the Amazon parliament.

"It is important for Artdean and Amazon countries," which have overlapping areas of biodiversity, "to establish shared norms to avoid unfair competition," says Astudillo.

From TWN Features