NORTH-SOUTH, PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS FOR BIODIVERSITY PROSPECTION: A CASE STUDY IN PERU

A Convencao da Diversidade Biologica foi o tratado que institucionalizou o consentimento previo e informado e a reparticao de beneficios como principios regulatorios multilaterais obrigatorios em projetos baseados na exploracao dos recursos da biodiversidade e conhecimentos tradicionais associados. Passados mais de quinze apos sua publicacao, ainda reverberam duvidas quanto ao que constitui um beneficio, quem pode ser identificado como beneficiario e qual o impacto deste instrumento sobre a protecao do conhecimento tradicional e o desenvolvimento sustentavel. Este trabalho relata a experiencia de aplicacao, e os respectivos impactos, do principio da reparticao de beneficios sobre a producao, uso e circulacao de conhecimentos tradicionais associados a biodiversidade, no Peru. Apresenta-se os resultados de pesquisa de campo realizada entre maio de 2007 e maio de 2008, no Peru e nos EUA, relativa a um projeto de bioprospeccao que envolveu comunidades indigenas Aguaruna e uma empresa farmaceutica norte-americana, do tipo start-up, hoje extinta. A analise aponta que o projeto assemelhou-se a uma relacao tradicional entre fornecedor-comprador e que a contribuicao para a transferencia de tecnologia, assim como para a protecao aos conhecimentos tradicionais, foi apenas residual. Palavras-chave: Biodiversidade; Bioprospeccao; Cooperacao Norte-Sul; Reparticao de Beneficios; Conhecimento Tradicional. Abstract Biodiversity prospecting, which refers to the process of looking for potentially valuable genetic resources and compounds in nature, is not a new phenomenon. Natural products as well as traditional knowledge have contributed extensively to drug research for several centuries. Contemporarily, prospective “takings” come with a mandate to “give back”. The promise of equitable returns to source communities and nations was institutionalized as a multilateral principle for the sustainable management of biodiversity in the 1992 United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). More than fifteen years of CBD sanctioned experiments have made evident the difficulties that the principle of benefit-sharing domain is likely to confront. Matters of sovereignty mix with questions not just of how much should be shared, but with whom, and on what basis. A number of inter-related questions arise alongside the politics of benefit-sharing: what kind of entitlement is this and what a benefit is? Who counts as a benefit-recipient? What mechanisms shall guarantee such redistributions and render it in practice? These are conceptual matters that suggest significant gaps at the interface of the conventional frameworks of community, nation, market and rights. This paper aims to contribute to this discussion answering the following question: to what extent can pharmaceutical prospecting really advance environmental conservation, indigenous rights, as well as promote national capacity building? The case study is a project that involved Shaman Pharmaceuticals, a venture-capital pharmaceutical company from USA and the Peruvian indigenous organization Consejo Aguaruna Huambisa. Information came from secondary and primary sources. Primary data was gathered during field research in Peru and USA, from June to October, 2007. The methodological approach included interviews with key-actors related to the project as well as a group of actors related to the general scope of benefit-sharing regulation and indigenous knowledge protection in Peru. Keywords: biodiversity prospection, benefit-sharing, Peru, north-south and public-private partnerships.