Plants

Pau Brasil
Biopiracy in the Amazon began almost immediately after the "discovery" by the Portuguese in 1500, when they stole the secret - from the indigenous people of the region - how to extract a red pigment from pau-brasil (brazil wood). Emblematic of today's situation, in which flora and fauna continue to disappear, the wood that gave Brazil its' name has completely disappeared, being preserved only in a few botanical gardens.

Rubber
The most infamous case is that of Englishman Henry Alexander Wickham, who in 1876 took rubber tree seeds - some say he hid them between banana leaves - to a new plantation of Hevea brasiliensis in the British colonies in Malaysia. In a few decades the region would become the main exporter of latex, ruining the rubber tree-based Amazon economy. Wickham was knighted by King George V and loathed by Brazil's rubber barons who called him "the Executioner of Amazonas."

Quinine
An other example is the malaria drug quinine: The indigenous people used the plant as an infusion in fever treatment. Derived from the cinchona tree (Cinchona officinalis) it was used in the 20s in the US for the treatment of malaria. Known as Indian fever bark the product was used in Europe since the early 1500s. (One century later its name had been changed to Jesuit fever bark…) The demand for cinchona almost made it extinct. By smuggling it from South America to Java, in 1865, Englishman Charles Ledger saved the plant. And - already sixty years later - more than 95% of the world's quinine was coming from Java…

Curare
The conflict is inevitable when it comes to patenting of medicinal plants: Curare, for example is a poisonous concoction with several plants whose formula was kept as an Indian secret for centuries. Some indigenous peoples use the formula for poisoning arrowheads. Alexander von Humboldt was the first European, in 1800, to witness and describe the way it was prepared.
But curare would start being used as an anesthetic only in 1943, four years after its active ingredient, the d-tubocurarine, was isolated.

Businessmen, thieves, heights egocentrism and coveted Amazon.

We know that Amazon is a treasure of the nature that still survives, since for centuries the others forests around the world are destructed.
The businessmen just understood a few time ago that nothing is forever, that is, that only rest the Amazon Forest,wich means, now turns to a great investment, they aren’t worried in saving it.
The books show that there were many thefts in the history. For more than 500 years, they theft almost all the pau-brasil and after a English man that theft rubber tree seedlings and them spoiled the Amazon’s economy, now turned common taking plants from the Amazon and patent wild plants from here.
The stolen plants are: cupuaçu, açaí, copaíba and andiroba.
These plants were patented by European countries, USA and Japan. Sorry If I’m wrong, but I know that we only patent something we have created or discovered. That is, these countries are ignoring the Brazilian native culture, stepping over us, as if no one in brazil would use, know or had capacity for seeing that these plants may be used for human benefits.
They think they are the world saviors, just because searching sites as English wikipedia says that they are just “marketing traditional knowledge” and “saving ill children”. The worst phrase was “biopiracy is a derogatory term for the marketing of Indian knowledge”.
There are many other wanted plants that Scientists to the progress of the biomedical researches.
The worst of all that is to know that Brazilians themselves don’t know what is biopiracy.
So, to clarify, biopiracy is the exploration, manipulation, exportation and/or international marketing of biological resources, that are against the rules of the Convention of Biological Diversity since 1992.
Brazilians open your eyes to see the wealth being stolen from you. Don’t be fooled by beautiful naming, and confront the problem and make the authorities take a stronger position about this problem.
We conclude that if throw the forest without protection is as leaving your house’s door opened while you are out.

Karina, a revolted student in front of a ridiculous situation.