Bioprospecting on the front burner for Native Hawaiians

By Liza Simon | OHA Public Affairs Specialist

After a year of islandwide meetings to gather public input, members of the governor's Temporary Commission on Bioprospecting are readying a report for lawmakers that will likely become the basis for regulating activities that are now governed by neither rules nor definition.

Bioprospecting involves collecting samples from living things to search for biochemical or genetic resources that can be used to manufacture commercial products, including pharmaceuticals.

“This is not a highly visible activity. You don't see a bulldozer or backhoe digging up the earth, so people might not visualize that it is damaging to our environment until it is too late,” said Office of Hawaiian Affairs Trustee Walter Heen, the Bioprospecting Commission Chair.

Heen said the 11 appointed members — a mix of Native Hawaiian cultural specialists, biotech industry representatives and government environmental agency managers, heard from many Native Hawaiians worried about the possible negative impact bioprospecting might have on native rights and natural resources. Heen agreed that there is cause for concern, especially if bioprospecting eventually leads to the patenting of a native plant derivative; this could create a legal barrier that would deprive lā'au lapa'au practitioners from using a plant with patented substances for their own traditional purposes.

“One of the underlying tasks for the Legislature is to figure out just what role the Native Hawaiians as indigenous people will play in this entire process of regulating bioprospecting,” said Heen.

Native Hawaiians are in a position to be the legal beneficiaries of a portion of revenue from commercial ventures that the state permits to take place on so-called ceded lands — Hawaiian Kingdom lands that passed eventually into the administrative control of the state. However, there is currently no state agency with permitting authority over bioprospecting, and there are also no administrative rules to say where bioprospecting can be conducted, who needs to be consulted beforehand and how the proceeds of ventures will be distributed.

In 2004, the University of Hawai'i signed a profit-sharing agreement with Diversa, a San Diego-based biotechnology company to develop new products from marine substances harvested from underwater or submerged lands, which are also ceded lands. The deal was eventually halted, but not before OHA accused the university of illegally giving up ceded land revenues and marketing the state's biodiversity. OHA and several Native Hawaiian groups then pushed for a legislative bill opposing similar deals, and called for a state Bioprospecting Commission. A 2006 House concurrent resolution authorized the all-voluntary body.

Out of the six commissioners of Native Hawaiian ancestry Keiki Pua-Dancil is the only one who also wears a scientist's hat as a researcher and vice president of the biotech company Hawai'i Chitopure. What's good for the industry is also good for Native Hawaiians, Pua-Dancil believes: “Any legitimate company wants to be held accountable for its impact (on the environment). Regulation is the answer we are all looking for,” she said.

Bioprospecting helps support the biotechnology industry, which has led to many medical advances, Pua-Dancil explained, adding that the recent round of public meetings raised awareness of the possible benefits of industry growth.

Because biotechnology also offers many high-salaried jobs, many believe that Hawai'i's support of bioprospecting activities will attract more companies and boost the state's economy. But some say that gains in such a highly specialized field will only benefit a few professionals and would come at the cost of the island's fragile environment — which would also be a detriment to native culture.

At a meeting in Hilo, international human rights attorney and former OHA Trustee Mililani Trask told commissioners: “As a Hawaiian, the biodiversity of things in nature is the basis of my culture, as it is of any native culture. The sustainability of this diversity is necessary for our food, our medicine, our cultural livelihood, even our sacred places and our everyday well-being.”

International law under the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity guarantees indigenous people a fair share of benefits and unlimited access to the natural resources of their lands. The United States declined to join the 180 counties that signed the United Nations agreement — a move that Trask calls “deplorable.” Bioprospecting isn't necessarily bad, if indigenous people can control it in their homelands as some have, Trask said, by using the U.N. convention to successfully press their claims.

OHA Trustee Heen stressed that the commission's policy recommendations for bioprospecting aren't just about monetary compensation. “We aren't just talking about proceeds at the end of the project. We want prior informed consent. We could require a prospector to hire Native Hawaiian students to assist or develop training programs for the research to be conducted.”

Heen also added that legislative policies and administrative rules would not likely put an end to Native Hawaiian concerns about bioprospecting. “Like so many Native Hawaiian issues,” he said, “this one is really a metaphor for self-determination.”