[Texgreen] Action Alert: Stop Commercial Bioprospecting in Our National Parks

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Urgent Action Alert: Share widely
Stop Commercial Bioprospecting in Our National Parks!
Sound Off to the Park Service by December 15th.

Help stop commercial bioprospecting in National Parks by sending your  
comment letter to the Park Service today (deadline for comments is  
December 15, 2006).

 >> Click here for a ready-made letter you can instantly send:
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/PEER/ 
campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=2663&t=sign-a-petition.dwt
or
 >> Review our Comment Points to write your own letter:
http://www.parksnotforsale.org/comment.html

Support Alternative "C"

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http://www.parksnotforsale.org/

Press Release, October 4, 2006:
National Park Service to Allow Commercial "Bioprospecting" in Parks
Public Interest Groups Cry Foul

What is Commercial Bioprospecting?
Bioprospecting is, quite literally, prospecting for microscopic  
resources, the genetic and biochemical information found in wild  
plants, animals, and microorganisms. Uses of products developed from  
material discovered through bioprospecting include a wide array of  
consumer products, industrial remedies, and pharmaceuticals.

As the demand for bioprospecting has grown, so have the places from  
which the bioprospecting companies have sought to extract organisms,  
including Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone Park scientists have  
discovered, for example, that the Park's thermal features contain a  
microbial community with a biological diversity similar in degree to  
tropical rainforests.

Background
In late September the National Park Service (NPS) made another bold  
step toward the commercialization of the natural resources in our  
National Parks. Specifically, the Park Service released its  
court-ordered Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) that could  
clear the way for corporations to "bioprospect" for microorganisms in  
national parks like Yellowstone. If the Park Service gets its way,  
corporations will be allowed to mine, exploit, patent, and profit from  
living organisms that we are supposed to be stewarding.

The controversy of bioprospecting in the national parks first came to  
light, interestingly enough, during the ceremony commemorating the  
125th anniversary of Yellowstone National Park in August 1997. During  
the ceremony, the Park Service announced that it had entered into an  
agreement with the Diversa Corporation to give Diversa a "non-exclusive  
right to 'bioprospect' microorganisms in Yellowstone in exchange for an  
agreement to share potential financial returns (i.e. benefits sharing)  
with the Park.

That announcement was met with a lawsuit filed in 1998 by the Edmonds  
Institute, the Alliance for Wild Rockies, and the International Center  
for Technology Assessment, who opposed commercial bioprospecting and -  
at the least - called for an environmental assessment of its  
consequences. In 1999, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court  
for the District of Columbia, ruled in favor of the public interest  
groups, suspended the agreement between the Park Service and Diversa,  
and ordered an environmental assessment in accordance with the  
requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. Now, seven years  
later, the Park Service has published the court-ordered environmental  
assessment, entitled "Benefits-Sharing," and opened a 90-day public  
comment period. [link: Download the DEIS (pdf) here]

The Park Service's DEIS outlines three possible plans of action: A) No  
action, thus allowing continued bioprospecting without the so-called  
benefit-sharing agreements; B) To allow commercial bioprospecting but  
require benefits-sharing agreements and some degree of public  
disclosure; and C) prohibit commercial bioprospecting, only allowing  
noncommercial or public interest research and development of nation  
park resources.

As a result, a group of organizations, including Edmonds Institute,  
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), Alliance for  
Wild Rockies, and Wilderness Watch, have launched a national grassroots  
initiative to educate the public on the Park Service's actions and to  
encourage the public to rally against commercial bioprospecting in  
national parks. Initially, the campaign seeks to generate public  
comments on the DEIS that support "option C."


- - - another article - - -

Bioprospecting: Mining Our National Parks One Gene at a Time
By Geov Parrish, AlterNet. Posted November 28, 2006.

"More to the point, these resources are not the federal government's to  
sell: They belong to all of us. And most especially to the point, there  
are some things that simply shouldn't be for sale. Life is an obvious  
one. It's one thing to sell chickens; it's another to sell the  
exclusive rights to Gallus gallus. The only difference here is size.  
Only a few weeks remain for public comment on the NPS proposal. Take  
some time to weigh in."

read whole article
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/44654/