Biopiracy Nominations - Last Call

Last call for nominations! Captain Hook Awards for Biopiracy, 2004

What's the most outrageous biopiracy case in your country? Who's ripping
off indigenous knowledge in your community? Who's monopolizing your genes
or patenting your plants? Has anyone trademarked your favorite patron saint?

Help put the spotlight on the Greediest, Most Offensive or Most Dangerous
biopirates from across the globe. Only the most egregious offenders will
skulk away as winners. We will also be honouring the communities,
organizations and individuals who have challenged biopiracy in the last two
years. Has your community seen off a bioprospector, challenged an unjust
patent or said no to a biopirate? Tell us...and we'll tell the world. The
award ceremony will be held at the meeting of the Convention on Biological
Diversity in Kuala Lumpur in February 2004.

Nominations must reach us by 21st January. Please email:
hook@captainhookawards.org

To see who has already been nominated, please go to:

http://www.captainhookawards.org

More details below.

About the Captain Hook Awards:

The Coalition Against Biopiracy (CAB)* will sponsor the Captain Hook awards
ceremony at the Seventh Conference of the Parties (COP7) to the Convention
on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 9-20 February
2004. It has been more than a decade since the CBD entered into force, but
there's still no meaningful regulation to stop biopiracy and the notion of
"benefit-sharing" is merely a charade. In 2004, it's still smooth sailing
and easy looting for biopirates who use intellectual property to plunder
genetic resources and pillage traditional knowledge.

Past years' winners for infamous and outstanding achievements in biopiracy
have included the US Patent and Trademark Office for reinstating the
Ayahuasca patent; Syngenta for its attempt to privatize the rice genome;
and, of course, repeat offender Monsanto. The prince of Liechtenstein won
in 2000 for his audacious patent on Basmati rice and the University of
Toledo took a prize for its patent on Ethiopia's endod. For a complete
list of 2002 winners awarded at COP6 in The Hague, go to
www.etcgroup.org/documents/captain_hook_awards.pdf

The real winners: But it's not all skulls and crossbones: you can also
nominate those institutions, peoples' organizations and governments that
have fended off acts of biopiracy, defeated predatory patents or defended
the intellectual integrity of farmers and indigenous peoples. The
Coalition Against Biopiracy will honour those who have fought against
biopirates with a "Cog" award (so-named because cogs were ships designed to
repel pirate attacks). COMPITCH and other indigenous peoples'
organizations in Mexico won in 2002 for defeating the US government's $2.5
million bioprospecting project in Chiapas. The International Center for
Tropical Agriculture won for legally challenging the US patent on Mexico's
yellow bean, and the Indian government and Indian people received an award
for challenging the Basmati patent. To view 2002 Cog winners, go to
www.etcgroup.org/documents/cog_awards.pdf

Here's how to nominate an offender for a Captain Hook Award or a
bio-defender for a Cog Award:

Deadline is Wednesday, January 21, 2004.

Send a brief description of the case with enough supporting documentation
for purposes of verification to hook@captainhookawards.org. Nominators may
remain anonymous. Once the nominated case is verified, it will be posted
at www.captainhookawards.org. You can select from the following categories
(or create your own):

For Captain Hook Awards:
Worst National Behaviour
Worst International Convention
Greediest
Most Offensive
Most Dangerous

For Cog Awards:
Best Individual Advocate
Best Peoples' Defense (institution, civil society organization)
Best Legal Defense
Best National Defense
Most Imaginative

For further information about biopiracy and the Captain Hook and Cog
Awards, please contact:

Silvia Ribeiro, ETC Group, silvia@etcgroup.org, 52-5555-6326-64 (Mexico)
Hope Shand, ETC Group, hope@etcgroup.org, 919-960-5223 (USA)
Alejandro Argumedo, Asociación ANDES, slfsal-peru@terra.com.pe
(51)-84-248-021 (Peru)
Neth Dano, SEARICE, searice@searice.org.ph, tel: 924-7544 (The Philippines)

*The Coalition Against Biopiracy is an informal group of civil society and
peoples' organizations that first came together at the 1995 Conference of
the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Jakarta.