Protecting The Bahamas' Natural Heritage

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

A few weeks ago it was reported that certain persons who had been given permits to do research in Bahamian waters were removing marine species to restock aquariums in the United States.

In another news story in The Nassau Guardian last week it was alleged that the Bahamas was selling itself cheap while foreign scientists and institutions were benefitting from important research using the country’s natural resources.

If these reports and other evidence of environmental abuse and unauthorized exploitation are true, Bahamians have good reason to ask: Who is guarding our heritage, especially our rich marine resources, our fish and conch and lobster, and our coral reefs?

If persons and institutions licensed to do research in Bahamian waters are removing our resources without permission and for commercial gain, then there is something wrong with the process of deciding who is allowed to do this kind of research and under what conditions.

People who visit the Bahamas on yachts every year are allowed to take reasonable quantities of fish and lobster for their personal use, but there are credible reports that this privilege is being abused and that some of them leave our waters well-stocked with fish, conch and lobster to be disposed of commercially.

This is not so easy to control, but certainly the Government of the Bahamas should not with its eyes wide open give permission to foreigners to remove marine resources from our waters.

The exploitation of these resources should be the exclusive right of Bahamians, and if any institutions want stocks for aquariums or other commercial purposes then authorized Bahamians should be the ones to supply them.

Last week’s news story by Guardian reporter LaShonne Outten quotes Peter Douglas of the Andros National Conservancy and Trust who claims that American scientists are exploring newly-discovered reefs which may have the potential to treat diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s:

“Our natural resource information and value are being pirated out of our country by foreign institutions. A lot of the information that is derived from the research on these organisms never stays in the Bahamas. We never have access to it. It is never shared with the public. It is never valued and we are never compensated for it. We sell ourselves cheap.

“Research on marine organisms for medicinal purposes has been going on in the Bahamas for a very long time. One of the things … we were advocating … is for the Bahamian Government, through the United Nations, to put a value on our marine resources that are used by private research organizations to gather huge profits through pharmaceutical usage.”

Mr. Douglas makes an extremely important point that other developing countries around the world are also making -- and trying to do something about. But it is doubtful that Prime Minister Christie and his PLP Government will pay any attention.

They are too busy plotting with energy corporations to launch an additional assault on our already endangered marine environment by establishing LNG plants in the Bahamas and digging up the ocean bed to lay pipes to Florida.

Developing countries are no longer being seduced by the siren song of globalization and trade liberalization while the developed world -- especially the United States and Europe – strive to make the world a safer place for their big corporations to make huge profits.

The scandalous excesses and greed of the oil and energy industry are well-known. Obscene profits are raked in from the natural resources of other countries while some of the people living on top of these resources remain in abject poverty -- and they do it without so much as an embarrassed blush.

A few weeks ago one of the captains of this industry decided to retire. While his own fellow citizens were groaning under the burden of record high gasoline prices, this tycoon walked away with a retirement package of $400 million!

The captains of the pharmaceutical industry are also doing their part. In the trade councils of the world and in negotiated trade deals, their objective is to keep profits as high as possible for as long as possible, sometimes at the expense of the world’s disease-ridden poor.

At the same time, these corporations act as if the earth is theirs and the fullness thereof. They are busy trying to extract the rich healing resources of the world right from under the noses of the people who own them.

But the natives are striking back. In South America, Africa and Asia, national governments are fighting to protect resources and local knowledge of cures going back thousands of years. The corporations want to patent them for their own exclusive profit and prevent the natives from using them!

Fortunately for small countries like the Bahamas, some big players in the developing world are leading the fight, and we should vigorously support them and seek their help.

At the World Trade Organization talks in Hong Kong last year, India, China and Brazil were among the nations moving to protect the developing world from the expropriation of native plants, animals and traditional remedies. They have coined a new word for this: biopiracy.

The Wall Street Journal, which is not too tickled over this development and sees almost insurmountable problems with it, nevertheless reported in December 2005 what was happening in Hong Kong.

These countries, said The Journal, want WTO members to recognize the need for a system that would control how corporations, scientists and other interests in the developed world can use a nation’s native plants, animals and centuries-old knowledge to make pharmaceuticals and other products.

“The developing nations are particularly concerned that a future blockbuster drug might be based on a plant or animal species originating in their jungles, without giving them any financial benefit. …

“Indian officials point to attempts over the past decade by scientists in the US and Europe to patent the medicinal qualities of the spice tumeric and neem, a tropical evergreen found in Asia.

“The patents were overturned by US and European authorities after India helped establish that the plants’ medicinal properties were already widely known in that country.”

What The Journal did not say but was reported by other sources, was that this 1999 legal battle was quite costly to the Government of India.

Just imagine that! Trying to patent tumeric, which the Indians probably knew about and were using for thousands of years!

The lesson for us is clear. We have to be careful how we allow outsiders to come in to research and exploit resources that belong to the Bahamian people without any benefit to the Bahamian people, as Mr. Douglas warns.

We know that the waters around these islands are the source of great wealth in the form of fish, conch and lobster but we do not know what other valuable resources, such as cures for diseases, might also be there.

We have also to protect our other resources and local knowledge such as herbal remedies, what we call bush medicine. Just suppose that what we believe about the healing power of cerasee is true. And five fingers, and strongback, and love vine!

In today’s world we cannot take for granted that these things are ours because there are people out there who would gladly “discover” them and then apply for patents in their own country. If Mr. Douglas is correct, we have already let some of them in to begin the process of biopiracy in the Bahamas.

Comments

[The Caribbean Advocate]

Follow me very closely ... the Bahamian people must first realize the untouched and uttermost powerful resource they have in and with each other.

There simply isnt a paramont value placed on the relationships, progression and sustenance ofthe bahamian people by the bahamian people.

Or is it that we have become the roach under the shoe of international investors whom may or may not have friends with powerful strings that can cause a callapse in the bahamian economy.

WE as a nation - like any nation - must take a step back and not only abide by the constitution by which makes us a great nation, but create a strategic plan of all facets (social & infrastructure need) in the Bahamas.

No of us would dear enter into a scheme, venture, investment or project without a clear and precise benefit to you and your family - thus the government of a sovereign state ought to establish the latter as a benchmark to ensure that the best practices available to bring the best to the Bahamian people is sought after at all times.