Biopirates According To Bry Lynas

Pirates were a bloodthirsty lot who stole and killed to make themselves rich. Often, they ended up getting killed themselves. They were outlaws, hunted down whenever possible by naval ships from various countries. The biopirates are a bit different. They don't kill, they patent. And they are completely protected by the law so nobody hunts them. They are usually employed by corporations or even governments to go and collect genetic material, e.g., seeds from places like India or the Amazon.

In India, the neem tree has been used by people for thousands of years for things like killing pests and as a medicine. An American company patented the tree which means that anyone using it should, by law, pay the company. This has outraged many people on the receiving end of this legalised theft. The Indian scientist Vandana Shiva explains that the real cause of biopiracy is the left-over colonial idea dating back to Columbus’s 'discovery'.

Columbus 'discovered' the Americas in 1492 and from that time on, Europeans began to take the land away from the native Americans, the original inhabitants of what are now Latin and North America. (They did the same in Africa and Australia.) The Americas became Europe's colonies, to be exploited in any way - including killing native people if they objected.

It's this same colonial tunnel vision which permits the piracy of gene resources and knowledge from non-Western cultures to be claimed as 'invention'. This means this once-free heritage of seeds or knowledge can be protected by patent. This is just legalised stealing. Knowledge now strangled by patents (called in legal language 'intellectual property rights' or IPRs) used to be freely shared between everybody who needed to use it.

Now, after patenting, people have to buy it to be able to use it legally - including those who had learned it as it was passed down through each generation in their communities. I don't know what you think about that but I think it's wrong. Your laws need changing!

To find out in depth about patenting, intellectual property laws and biopiracy, try Vandana Shiva on 'Protecting the Pirates' and turmeric (a spice used widely in India for eating and healing) and patenting. A US company called RiceTec has even tried to patent basmati rice in India and jasmine rice in Thailand.

Lanun-lanun

Lanun-lanun Selat Malaka
Malam siang menyamun
Manakah tempat asal mu?
Mana diri mu?
Mana ibu mu?
Adakah bini mu bersama mu?
Kalau-kalau waktu kejadian
Bertenang jangan menghalang
Manakah, manakah tempat asal mu?
Mana ibu mu?
Mana bini mu?
Adakah pegangan antara mu?

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Kau masih menetek atau sejurus sesudahnya
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