[tag]Biopiracy[/tag] is the creation of biological agents from indigenous sources, without compensation to the people or government with traditional ownership over that resource. Disputes over who “owns” a resource are endless, and the pharmaceutical companies often offer up the reasoning that a tribe or other indigenous group has no concept of ownership, therefore the sap, venom, or other matter in question is the property of all humanity. Or they argue that they act in the interests of the Greater Good. Or there’s a lot of mumbo-jumbo about intellectual property/patent law until everyone falls into a hypnotic stupor. Usually, it’s some combination of the three.

There’s a long history of biopiracy in [tag]Brazil[/tag], and there’s a full-scale effort to end the exploitation of the rain forest. In combatting this problem many (most?) in the scientific community feel that the Brazilian Government has gone too far. The latest outrage: the arrest of primatologist [tag]Marc van Roosmalen[/tag].

The New York Times reports:

Marc van Roosmalen is a world-renowned primatologist whose research in the Amazon has led to the discovery of five species of monkeys and a new primate genus. But precisely because of that work, Dr. van Roosmalen was recently sentenced to nearly 16 years in prison and jailed in Manaus, Brazil.

[read the whole article]

It’s not all about the [tag]monkey[/tag] – there’s a great picture of a green palm viper (a species whose venom was pirated) accompanying the story.

But speaking of monkeys, University of Chicago researchers report in Ethology that Rhesus monkeys use “baby-talk” vocalizations with young monkeys. Ethology is an obscenely expensive scholarly journal, but you can read a summary of the work on the National Geographic News site.

Incidentally, right alongside the articles about biopiracy, the National Geographic site serves up ads trying to sell me Hoodia products. Hoodia has sparked especially contentious debate in recent years.

The [tag]BBC[/tag] ran a 4 part series in 2004, Pills, Patients and Profits that included a segment on the controversies over the development of Hoodia as a mass-market weight-loss drug. Although it’s a few years out of date, the issues the series raises are still alive and kicking.