Question

"The Case of​ Hoodia" concerns bioprospecting. Bioprospecting refers to the​ centuries-old practice of collecting and screening plant and other biological material for commercial​ purposes, such as the development of new​ drugs, seeds and cosmetics. Biopiracy is a negative term referring to the claiming of legal rights over such biological​ material, usually by means of​ patents, without compensation to the groups who discovered and originated the knowledge of this material. Graham Dutfield has described fundamentally different views on biopiracy as​ follows:

In countries like​ India, the predominant view is that the nation itself is the​ "victim" of biopiracy. For​ Africa, the perception seems to be that the continent as a whole is prey to the biopiracies. But in the​ Americas, Australia and New​ Zealand, the victims are seen generally as indigenous peoples who​ usually--though not​ always--represent minority populations.

Comment on​ Dutfield's possible reasons for drawing these conclusions.

Answer 1

Biopiracy can happen when a country or a continent is very rich in culture and heritage and has a very long standing history of their ethnicity. India is a country which has a culture of thousands of years and has been a primarily an agricultural based country. It has got several different established communities with vast knowledge on biological material, like cultivation, plants, seeds and the manufacture of various drugs from plants. India is known for it's practice of Ayurveda with longstanding history of natural healing derived from natural sources such as plants, roots, seeds and natural oils. However India has a long standing history of military infiltration of various colonies who have just taken and run away with the enthnic discovery of many Indians. It's very similar with Africa. Almost the whole of Africa was under the rule of the colonial powers and there were many tribes who had immense knowledge of biosphere, natural resources like soil, plants, natural healing, seeds, oils, micro organisms and other biological resources. The initial inhabitants of Southern Africa were having a very good knowledge on such matter and they had presence in many diffrent African countries.But they were very poor, weak and marginalized and could not protect tehmselves from the biopiracy of the colonial powers. They had discovered the elements of the Hoodia plant which the Britishers stole it away and patented in their name. These kinds of incidents of Biopiracy was very much limited to the America, Australia and New Zealand as they were countries of immigrants and the initial inhabitants were very much limited in numbers and completely over powered by the colonial powers. For e.g., the initial inhabitants of Australia were the Aborigines who lived on just hunting, fishing and gathering but lacked the strong ethnicity of countries which had a very strong indigenous culture like that of India. Similar was the case of America and New Zealand which had initial inhabitants who lived by just hunding, fishing and gathering but lacked the ethnicity and knowledge of India and African tribes.So biopiracy was very much limited to these minority groups of native inhabitants. And America, New Zealand and Australia were all under European colonialization which took away the knowledge of the weak inhabitants on biosphere and patented in their names.

So the reasons of Dutfield's conclusion is based on the study of various cultures and ethnic groups which had a very vast history of culture and heritage and immense knowledge of the biosphere and the living resources. But these groups, though had rich culture and heritage were under the colonial powers who robbed them of their knowledge on he biosphere and the related and patented on their names. Since India and whole of Africa had very rich knowledge on the biosphere, they were robbed by the invading colonial powers and patented in their own names and since Autralia, New Zealand and America had very much a very marginalized initial inhabitants and were also under the colonial powers, the biopiracy could only happen to these local groups and were very much limited to these individual tribes and people who possed such knowledge in comparison to the vast enthnicity, culture and heritage of India and African tribes( who had presence in a lot of African countries).