Transcripts
"Government-sponsored biological research splits Mexican Left from Greens"
by Bruce G Ferguson, Chiapas, Mexico
"It is terrible that they are promoting the census of animals and plants in communities."- AlejandroVillamar of the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (www.rmalc.org.mx) speaking at the International Analysis Seminar on the Southern Border, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, 27 September, 2002.
Statements such as these reveal how deeply national Mexican organizations and other activist groups distrust biological and ethno-biological research andoften conservation efforts. This distrust, reflected in the uproar over bio-prospecting/bio-piracy in Chiapas which probably spurred the declaration quoted above, is a rational reaction to the threat of the privatisation of biological and cultural heritage through intellectual property rights. It is also a reaction to the government's use of conservation concerns as a cover for action against Zapatista autonomous communities, and is accompanied by a fear of espionage which takes place under the guise of ecological inventories and monitoring
Yet the wholesale rejection of biological research and conservation efforts by the left is clearly a victory for the Mexican government's counterinsurgency movement. By casting autonomous communities in the role of agents of deforestation, it has succeeded in putting supporters of the EZLN in a defensive posture that alienates them from many biologists and environmental activists. These groups should be allies in the struggle against global privatisation and the corporate exploitation of natural resources.
The combination of inherited knowledge and scientific method promises important advances in areas vital to the survival of rural Mexicans, including health, ecologically based production systems, restoring productivity to degraded areas and the conservation of natural resources and biodiversity. By documenting traditional knowledge, researchers can help prevent its erosion in the face of cultural globalisation. Furthermore, through their collections and publications, scientists can help keep cultivars, other organisms and the traditional knowledge surrounding them in the public domain, in accordance with the wishes expressed by native groups (consider the role of scientists in fighting the yellow bean patent.
Realising this synergy will require reflection and generosity by all the parties involved. Conservationists should focus on the deeper, social causes of deforestation and avoid blaming those struggling for survival on the agricultural frontier. Scientists must confront a history of exploitative research that has profited from the time and knowledge of local collaborators but offered little in return. Researchers in poor communities, especially in zones of conflict, must be aware of the political and social ramifications of their activities. Communities and rural organizations will have to find ways to evaluate researchers, conservationists and their projects on an individual basis, distinguishing those that have something to offer from those who will take advantage of them.
Activists could support this rapprochement by helping conscientious researchers to avoid ethical, legal, and strategic pitfalls. Those involved in ecological monitoring, for example, could probably use help in identifying which kinds of information might be exploited by military intelligence. Ethno-biologists could benefit from guidelines that help them manage their collections and publish their findings in such a way that organisms and the compounds and genetic material they contain remain in the public domain. Organizations that have won the trust of rural communities could help them interpret scientists' track records and research goals. A code of conduct for researchers that could be incorporated in an agreement that they sign with communities might be a useful tool.
While overcoming decades of accumulated mistrust is a daunting task, rural Mexicans will need all the allies they can get if they are to preserve their way of life under the onslaught of neo-liberalism.
Bruce G. Ferguson
El Colegio de la Frontera Sur
San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México
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