Message-ID: <31D712BA.7D05@samperecen.com.ec> Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 18:50:18 -0500 From: Juan Martinez Borrero <mailto:samperec@SAMPERECEN.COM.EC> Subject: Warnig ayahuasca patented! To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
WARNING! PLANTS PATENTS THREATENS INDIGENOUS PEOPLE RIGHTSThe indigenous people of the Amazon basin have been robbed of their ancestral knowledge trough the patent (PPA# 5751) of the alucinogenic beverage ayahuasca by the International Medicine Corporation. This beverage is well known to many indigenous people on the Amazon and perhaps is in use for more than ten thousand years, today it is used mainly by shamans under the names of yage, natem or ayahuasca. Another American enterprise ÜShaman Pharmaceuticsß (sic) patented Sangre de Drago, Drago blood, another traditional plant used by Ecuadorian Indians. Indigenous people of Ecuador have protested against this appropiation of traditional knowledge. We, as anthropologists and historians, consider this action to be against our rights to use and to protect ecuadorian biodiversity. There must be something that could be done. This kind of Ülaboratoriesß usually do none research, they just come to our countries and stole our traditional knowledge, if there is some true sense of justice to Third World countries this kidnaping must be stopped. I am going to post more about this based on research made by Ecuadorian newspaper El Comercio. If you have ideas about any action indigenous people could develop, please let me know.
Juan Martínez mailto:samperec@samperecen. com.ec Cuenca, Ecuador.