Ayahuasca and Nuña : Usurpation of The Andean Heritage (Perhabs a Conspiracy You Didn't Know)

I found this info some days ago, I was so mad when I read it and had to cool down before posting it. It wasn't enough to have the conquistadors stealing and destroying our heritage for centuries. My mother is a Amazon Rainforest Native and felt a deep pain in my heart. The information is not new and that also makes me feel embarrassment for being unaware of it.

When I was a child, living in South America, I learnt to love "Pachamama" (Mother Earth), and I understood you are free to take what you need from her, without claiming any authority over what she offers to us with love. Same way our kids dont need to ask permission to open the refrigerator at home, when they need a drink or snack, without abuse or selfish attitude.

- "The Ayahuasca Patent Case". -

In 1981, Loren Miller, director of California-based International Plant Medicine Corporation, took a sample of ayahuasca back to the United States. Miller then patented it with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, claiming a new plant variety he called Da Vine, and in 1986 obtained exclusive rights to sell and breed the plant. It was not until ten years later that Amazonian native people became aware that one of their sacred plants was now under U.S. patent law. By 1998, Miller had received, and ignored, repeated requests from indigenous groups to give up the patent.

Finally, the Coordinating Body for Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), a group based in Ecuador and representing over 400 indigenous groups from eight countries, decided to take action. “Our goal is to have the ayahuasca patent annulled, and to teach all international biopirates a lesson,” said Rodolfo Asar, communications director of COICA.The organization informed its members that Miller was an “enemy of indigenous peoples,” and that “his entrance into all indigenous territory should he prohibited.”

A war of words ensued. The organization posted a notice on its website stating that it would not be responsible for any physical harm to Miller if he ventured into indigenous territory. Miller said he was given a sample of the plant by an indigenous community in Ecuador, but he refused to identify the community on the grounds that he wanted to protect residents from COICA, which he called a terrorist organization that had ruined the reputation of his business.

In the fall of 1999, the PTO nullified the patent on the grounds that a specimen like Miller’s was on display at Chicago’s Field Museum at least a year before he applied for a patent. “Our shamans and elders were greatly troubled by this patent,” said Antonio Jacanamijoy Rosero. “Now they are celebrating.”

The celebration did not last.



While the PTO had accepted the arguments that the claimed plant variety was not distinctive or novel, it had not acknowledged the argument that its religious value warranted an exception from patenting. In apparent violation of its own procedures, the PTO allowed Miller to submit new evidence and arguments, centering on the differences between his ayahuasca plant and museum reference plants. In January 2001, without having heard opposing views, the PTO reversed its rejection and, in April, issued a certificate allowing the patent to stand for the remaining two years of its term.

Ironically, after all his legal efforts, Miller was left with a patent that was virtually valueless. The patent he received protected only the specific genome of the patented plant and its asexually reproduced progeny — that is, exclusive rights over nothing more than his original plant and specimens grown from its cuttings. It did not give him rights over any other specimens of the ayahuasca vine, even specimens that might be identical in appearance.

Under the law, a patent applied for before 1995 expires seventeen years from the date it was originally issued. The ayahuasca patent expired on June 17, 2003. It cannot be renewed.

- "Bracing for "El Nuña" ". -

Tales from a Tribunal: “The nuña bean is part of the Andean heritage. It is our treasure. For a company to
patent a nuña cross, claiming the "bean-nut popping bean" as an "invention" with absolute world novelty is
immoral and violates the rights of all indigenous groups,” said Elias Carreno, Coordinator of the "Stop
Biopiracy in the Andes" Campaign of the Associación Kechua-Aymara for Sustainable Livelihoods, ANDES
(translated from Spanish).
Indigenous elders from six Andean communities that grow nuña beans met in late February for a traditional
Quechua “tribunal” to deliberate on US Patent No. 6,040,503 on the “bean-nut popping bean” awarded to a US
food processor, Appropriate Engineering and Manufacturing. The popping bean trait is found only in the
Andean nuña bean, which the inventors claim in their patent. After hearing testimony from expert witnesses, the
tribunal rendered their decision. Their verdict was unflinching in its criticism of intellectual property
monopolies that are predatory on the knowledge, rights and resources of indigenous people.
“Ayahuasca, quinoa, and now nuña,” said Carreno, referring to controversial US patent claims on traditional
Andean medicinal plants and food crops. (The ayahuasca and quinoa patents were subsequently overturned or
abandoned due to the protests of indigenous peoples). “These plants represent the collective heritage and
knowledge of our people, and we won’t sit back and allow our popping-bean to be appropriated by a monopoly
patent.”
The tribunal issued a strongly worded public declaration promising to fight the popping bean patent, and
demanded that CIAT - The International Center for Tropical Agriculture based in Cali, Colombia – uphold its
obligation under a United Nations “trust agreement” to keep farmer-bred bean varieties in the public domain and
off-limits to intellectual property.
“CIAT challenged the patent on Mexico’s yellow bean late last year, and we are asking them to defend our
rights by taking similar action on the nuña patent,” said Moises Quispe Quispe of the Nuña Farmers Federation
of Cusco, Peru.
The not-so-novel Nuña: The subject of the patent that has shocked bean breeders, indigenous peoples, and other
civil society groups is an Andean bean that 'hops when it pops' and 'flies when it fries.’ The nuña bean
(pronounced "noonya") is nutritious - with a faintly "peanuty" taste. More importantly for farming communities
in the arid Andes, cooking nuña requires little fuelwood. The bean is roasted not boiled. A few minutes over the
fire and the beans literally "pop" out of their shells ready to munch.

(Please read the rest in the links provided)

www.singingtotheplants.com...
www.etcgroup.org...

Other sources :

www.greenleft.org.au...
naturalscience.com...
forums.gardenweb.com...

an interesting subject for me but sadly i'm gonna wait to explore further and reply etc to see if this is 404'd such subjects rarely last long here

Originally posted by skalla
an interesting subject for me but sadly i'm gonna wait to explore further and reply etc to see if this is 404'd

such subjects rarely last long here

Yeah, never know right?. Just in case I copied the whole initial post.

Originally posted by Trueman

Originally posted by skalla
an interesting subject for me but sadly i'm gonna wait to explore further and reply etc to see if this is 404'd

such subjects rarely last long here

Yeah, never know right?. Just in case I copied the whole initial post.

...And pasted it to this website

What I'm curious about is how this guy got a patent for it in 1985, when it was put on the illegal substance list in '75. Do you happen to have an answer for that?

so far so good.... i've bookmarked links for further reading etc and i'll tread lightly.
i was not aware of these patent cases and i see it as a clear case of theft on a grand scale. i just cant see anyway that a government should be able to legislate away rights to something that exists unchanged in nature and does not require industrial processing to exist (ie with the use of a complex process using industrial chemicals, rather than woodland kitchen type prep)... nature trumps governments in all cases in my book.

the only way i could accept the patenting of a plant is under a rigourous and non gm breeding programme where certain phenotypes are bred to produce a plant with very distinct charcteristics where the breeder has clearly been highly active and made something quite original and with distinct properties from the parent, and then i reckon possibly only cuttings should be covered imo rather than seed.

thanks for posting SnF

reply to post by skalla

nature trumps governments in all cases in my book.

I couldn't agree with you more, unfortunately the people in this world don't seem to understand that. There are way to many plants that the government has but on an illegal list. Hell the FDA is even trying to make stem cells illegal. '___' occurs in everything in nature, 9/10 animals have endocanibidol systems, and everything produces stem cells. So where did the courage of the people go when they sit down and allow the government to regulate NATURE... People need to learn to stand up.

Originally posted by openeyeswideshut

Originally posted by Trueman

Originally posted by skalla
an interesting subject for me but sadly i'm gonna wait to explore further and reply etc to see if this is 404'd

such subjects rarely last long here

Yeah, never know right?. Just in case I copied the whole initial post.

...And pasted it to this website

That is the typical bad post we shouldn't have in ATS. Try to read and refer to the sources, not to the messenger.

The right way to disagree with the post is finding your own sources that can debunk those that had been offered. I see you have none.

reply to post by Trueman


All I did was make a statement about your post, and ask you a question. I'm not discounting the information that is there I am merely asking the question. There is a conspiracy behind this, and it goes deeper than just someone trying to patent something from native americans. My question was somewhat rihtorical, and meant to get you to think about why they did that.

My smart @$# remarks were because of the method you chose to deliver the information in.

Originally posted by openeyeswideshut
reply to post by Trueman

 

All I did was make a statement about your post, and ask you a question. I'm not discounting the information that is there I am merely asking the question. There is a conspiracy behind this, and it goes deeper than just someone trying to patent something from native americans. My question was somewhat rihtorical, and meant to get you to think about why they did that.

My smart @$# remarks were because of the method you chose to deliver the information in.

edit on 19-4-2013 by openeyeswideshut because: (no reason given)

Thanks for making your opinion more clear, your question is acceptable and hope we find out the answer. Honestly your "smart @$# remarks" made me uncomfortable . Sorry for my bad reaction.

Going back to the topic, I just can't find a solid evidence to debunk the info offered by the sources. I wish someone can tell me it isn't true, because it's terrible.

Here I found a document regarding one o the patents mentioned. It seems to be confirming the previous info.

The Enola and NuZa Bean Patents in the Context of Intellectual Property Rights for Plant Cultivars

L. Pallottini, a,c E.Garcia, b J. Kami, G. Barcaccia, a and P. Gepts Department of Agronomy & Crop Science, University of Padova, Agripolis, Via Romea 16, 35020 Legnaro, PD, Italy
b Department of Food Science & Technology, c c Department of Agronomy & Range Science, University of
California, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA

It is fair to say that the news that two patents awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office for beans have been met with incomprehension, if not downright consternation by the
bean research community. The two patents are for the yellow seed coat as shown by the common
bean cultivar Enola (Proctor 1999; Patent no. 5,894,079, 1999) and for popping (nuZa or kopuru)
beans adapted to temperate (U.S.) conditions (Ehlers and Sterner 2000; Patent no. 6,040,503,
2000). In addition, a Plant Variety Protection (PVP) certificate was also awarded for the Enola
cultivar. The surprise caused by the awards of these IPRs (Intellectual Property Rights) is
directly related to their perceived lack of novelty. This overview will address a number of topics,
namely a brief historic overview of the introduction of IPRs on living organisms, the type of
IPRs applied to crop cultivars, the specific cases of the Enola and nuZa patents, and a discussion
about some issues related to biodiversity and crop cultivar IPRs.

ipmall.info...

About the Ayahuasca, a quick search in wikipedia gave another supporting result :

Ayahuasca has also stirred debate regarding intellectual property protection of traditional knowledge. In 1986 the US Patent and Trademarks Office allowed the granting of a patent on the ayahuasca vine B. Caapi. It allowed this patent based on the assumption that ayahuasca's properties had not been previously described in writing. Several public interest groups, including the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) and the Coalition for Amazonian Peoples and Their Environment (Amazon Coalition) objected. In 1999 they brought a legal challenge to this patent which had granted a private US citizen "ownership" of the knowledge of a plant that is well-known and sacred to many indigenous peoples of the Amazon, and used by them in religious and healing ceremonies.[62] Later that year the PTO issued a decision rejecting the patent, on the basis that the petitioners' arguments that the plant was not "distinctive or novel" were valid. However, the decision did not acknowledge the argument that the plant's religious or cultural values prohibited a patent. In 2001, after an appeal by the patent holder, the US Patent Office reinstated the patent. The law at the time did not allow a third party such as COICA to participate in that part of the reexamination process. The patent, held by US entrepreneur Loren Miller, expired in 2003.[63]

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Trueman


not that i read him, but didn't Casteneda write about ayahuasca long long before '86? surely there were plenty of writers that covered this in the 1950's and 60's at least? regardless it's a filthy piece of culture-theft

reply to post by skalla

regardless it's a filthy piece of culture-theft

I have no better words to describe it. Thanks.