Access to biodiversity can be looked upon from the perspective of its uses as well as the methods of access (also see Pew Ethical Guidelines, 1993, Gupta, 1994 a, b).
• Access Framework
Access
Extractive Non extractive
Non commercial 1 2
Returns
Commercial 3 4
1) Non-commercial / Extractive: The samples are extracted for taxonomic or ecological analysis without any commercial purpose in mind, e.g. for academic research and studies by different individuals, institutions, and public & government organizations. Recent examples of such studies include the Department of Plant Science, Oxford, UK, request to the Ministry of Environment & Forest for conducting field studies and collection of specimen Flora from South India. 29 A similar request was made by the Royal Botanical Garden, Edinburgh, Scotland, conduct field studies and collect flora from Sikkim, India.
2) Non-commercial / Non-extractive: Access to biodiversity in order to describe eco-systems or local institutions. For instance, studies carried out by the Zoological Survey and Botanical Survey of India in order to document the biodiversity can be termed as examples of such access. The ethno botanical studies documenting knowledge of ethnic communities about plants are another example of access to biodiversity and associated knowledge systems. It is true that this information may be put to commercial use or the sites described may become sites for economic extraction or eco- tourism later, but if, at the time of documentation, the intention was of a non-commercial nature, then the case will fall within this category.
3) Commercial / Non-extractive: The extraction of local knowledge systems of the local community about the biodiversity, rather than the diversity itself, falls in this category. This knowledge is later utilized for commercial gains in collaboration with pharmaceutical firms and other commercial prospectors. The access does not involve actual physical extraction of biodiversity. The use of the knowledge possessed by the Kani tribe to screen a therapeutic drug by Tropical Botanical Garden Research Institute (TBGRI) with benefit sharing agreements is a well-known example in India. Databases, such as the Natural Products Alert Database (NAPRALERT), which contain a range of information including ethno botanical data on selected plants, are accessed by different companies on payment as the data can help at several stages of medicinal development. However, the service is provided free of cost to developing countries.
29 The Ministry of Environment & Forest granted access to these Institutions on the following terms and
conditions:
1) The accessor will collect only those species that are specified in the request.
2) The specimen or collection will be used only for the purpose listed in the request.
3) A scientist from Botanical Survey of India will accompany them to all the field visits made.
4) Before publishing the outcome of the research conducted the MoEF permission is to be sought.
5) In case the research has potential for commercial exploitation another agreement need to be signed.
6) Transfer of specimen or the research finding to third party without prior permission of MoEF is prohibited.
4) Commercial / extractive: The form of access where the commercial organization, local communities or cooperatives extract components of biodiversity for commercial purposes. This involves physical extraction of biodiversity to produce value added products or for direct use of the resource. The extraction of medicinal plants by firms to produce medicines, the working of bamboo forests by the paper industry for use in pulp production, are examples of this category. The Merck-INBio deal in Costa Rica is a classical example. Merck, a pharmaceutical company, received screened natural samples from INBio, National Institute of Biodiversity of Costa Rica, for further research and development. Similarly, the use of medicinal herbs and plants by an individual herbalist to treat patients may also be termed as an extractive and commercial access. Here the scale, purpose, and location of the user may make a further difference to the obligation of the extractors.
The commercial/extractive and commercial/non-extractive access (No. 3 & 4) can be pursued for different proposes by various extractors. The location of the user and the extractor may influence the respective entitlements and obligations.
The term , `local’ refers to geographical limitation such that resources are extracted or used by the communities living around the resource. They may or may not have formal property rights on the resource. The external user or location would mean distant, farther and beyond the access and control of local communities. Thus local context would be a tribal community living in or around a forest and dependent on the locally available resources for its survival. The external agents could include companies or scientists or others located in the cities nearby or even outside the country. The difference is in scale and spatial distance. It is true that local communities may have institutional arrangement whereby the control, the mechanism of using a resource outside. For instance, a local cooperative unit for managing biodiversity resource may have a plant or trading centre in far off place. In such a case, the local user is only implying the relationship of the user with the resource. Obviously, the user may have external connections. The scheme presented here should be seen as a way of looking at contrasting situations to understand the underlying tensions.
User Location Local External
Local 1 2
Extractor Location
External 3 4
1) Local Extractor-Local Use
The use of diversity by the communities residing near the site, or having property rights over it, for their own consumption, may constitute category 1. Collection of leaf litter from social forestry to be used as fuel by tribal communities in Orissa, India, or the use of bamboo available in the forest for construction of houses by local and indigenous communities are examples of such modes of access. An Exim Bank occasional paper estimates the local extraction and consumption of herbal plants to the tune of Indian Rupees (Rs.) 600 million every year.
2) Local Extractor-External Use
The economic significance of Indian biodiversity can be gauged by the fact that the domestic trade in medicinal herbs and its extracts is to the tune of Rs. 3 billion and is increasing. (Source: Exim Bank Occasional Paper No.54) The medicinal herbs are extracted by the local people and reach the industry, through middlemen, to be utilized for production of value added natural products.