Uventures

Nabalam, Mexico --- Iladia Rodriguez waved her leathery arms and let out a furious stream of complaints in her native language. The 70-year-old Maya Indian needed no translation to convey her contempt for one foreign word that punctuated her testimony.

"Patent!" she said. Others gathered around her in this hamlet next to a thick Mexican jungle nodded in agreement.

A folk healer, Rodriguez is part of a group of Indians in Mexicos tumultuous Chiapas state that have forced a halt, for now, to a multinational project exploring the potential of traditional medicinal plants.

The project was started by an anthropologist at the University of Georgia and funded with a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Its aim is to preserve dying, yet effective, Maya knowledge about treating arthritis, intestinal and respiratory ills, labor pains, depression and other ailments.

The anthropologist, Brent Berlin, also formed a partnership with academic and commercial laboratories to study plant extracts, dosages and combinations --- hoping to find cures for cancer or AIDS in these plant-choked mountains and jungles.

But the project has stumbled amid controversy over who owns the native plants, folk knowledge and commercial rights to whatever cures might emerge.

Berlin, who has studied Chiapas culture and plants since 1960, pledged to nearly 50 villages that he would share profits from any sales, patents or medicines that result from his International Collaborative Biodiversity Group-Maya.

But he was unable to convince one pivotal group, the Chiapas Traditional Indigenous Doctors and Midwives, or COMPITCH, which is also dedicated to reviving Maya healing traditions. The group persuaded the Mexican government to yank permits for Berlins project.

"They're picking on the wrong people," said Berlin, who is appealing to the government of Mexican President Vicente Fox and Chiapas Indians to revive the project.

Berlins opponents say Mexico shouldnt allow such exploration until it establishes laws for "bioprospecting," a growing field of medical research. Plant collection by scientists and pharmaceutical companies has natives of Latin America and other regions fearing exploitation by wealthy countries.

Add to that the explosion of Indian consciousness in Chiapas since the 1994 uprising by armed Zapatista Indian rebels, and bioprospectors are increasingly seen as "biopirates."

Fox has made resolving the Chiapas uprising a priority. Hes pushing Mexicos Congress to pass laws giving Indians more control over natural resources.

"If someone comes to patent our plants, well be left with nothing. . . . This is our knowledge. We want a project without patents that benefits all people," said folk doctor Antonio Perez of COMPITCH, who believes patents violate the native tradition of sharing knowledge.

But Berlin said concern for Indian rights is what motivated him in the first place. He said his project will benefit Indians, who could share equal control over the project through a council.

Berlin set up a trust fund administered by the Norcross-based Gwinnett Foundation, and donated $30,000 in academic prize money he had won.

"Indians have been ripped off for 500 years," he said. "They have been lied and lied to."

But he believes impoverished Maya would like to earn money from their natural resources, and without seed money from outside Chiapas, that wont be possible.

"They hate our guts by virtue of the fact that we are gringos," he said of COMPITCHs non-Indian advisers. He said he has been demonized on the Internet, and he is so defensive he declined to have his picture taken for this report.

"A lot of people have misunderstood this. This was going to help us remember what our ancestors knew. We were going to have gardens for our own use," said Juan Lopez, a native healer who worked on Berlins project until December, when, without government permits, a new laboratory set up at the College of the Southern Border in San Cristobal de las Casas was shut down.

Berlin said he has no intention of patenting plants or Indian knowledge. But he said patents on processing methods and products are a reality when laboratories that make investments are involved. His partners include a Welsh biotechnology firm, Molecular Nature Ltd., the University of Georgia and Mexicos College of the Southern Border.

Opponents argue that corporations at the top of a research chain typically hog royalties, offering only about 1 percent to those who provide prime material for a product. They also accuse Berlin of failing to obtain adequate permission from local Indian authorities. Berlin said he followed instructions from village leaders.

"Part of the problem is that in Chiapas the whole system of authority is in conflict," said ecologist Luis Garcia-Barrios of the College of the Southern Border. "There are Indians who say they dont recognize certain authorities."

A Canadian-based nonprofit, the Rural Advancement Foundation International, RAFI, also has come out against Berlins project. RAFI is working with Bolivias Kallawaya Indians, said director Pat Mooney, to ensure they share in commercial benefits on plants they help identify. A University of California, Irvine scientist studying Bolivian plants recently discovered acids that suppress an enzyme that causes AIDS.

Berlins project "is an honorable goal," Mooney said. "I dont think hes a bad person, and I dont think hes in the pocket of international corporations."

But without solid Indian support -- hard to define in a "semi-war zone like Chiapas" -- the Maya are vulnerable, Mooney said.

U.S. institutions, he said, are suspect because the United States has refused to sign the U.N. Treaty on Biodiversity, which calls for safeguarding native interests.

Berlin agreed that ground rules are needed. But it will take study to establish who really represents Indians, he said, contending that COMPITCH doesnt speak for all Maya.

"This is a fascinating moment in history, even if I lose," he said. "How do we use sustainable biodiversity for the benefit of mankind? Thats one of the great questions of the 21st century."

ON THE WEB:

Berlins Website: www.guallart.dac.uga.edu
The College of the Southern Border: www.ecosur.mx
RAFI's Website: www.rafi.org