TEXTO I

Preempting Piracy

First, it was raiding ships on the high seas. Then, with the advent of the information age, it was copying and downloading films and music. Today, the new frontier of piracy is “biopiracy,” when companies in wealthy nations patent indigenous medical and cosmetic remedies that have been used for centuries in poor countries. In 1999, for instance, New Jersey-based Pure World Botanicals obtained U.S. patents on aphrodisiacs derived from maca, an Andean plant Peruvians have long used to bolster fertility. The value of the U.S. market for macaderived products was estimated to be more than $20 million in 2003.

Hoping to prevent wealthy corporations from staking claim to traditional remedies, some nongovernmental organizations and even a few governments are cataloging indigenous medicines and plant species in online databases. - Jaideep Singh

(Foreign Policy, Sep. / Oct., 2004: 93)

Responda em português.

Que tentativa está sendo feita para evitar o problema da biopirataria?