On biopiracy

1. When I watched Pirates of the Caribbean, a few bioheritage issues cropped up. When the Portuguese were here in 1511, the Dutch in 1642 and the British in 1787, the Japanese in 1940 and the British came back in 1945, surely they did not come innocently. The textbooks they came for spices. However, I think they came for many other reasons ...spice was probably one of them.

2. After Independence in 1957 many more peoples came to Malaysia, Portugueses, Dutch, British, Japanese and others ....this time not for spice, but for our natural resources. They were looking for soil bacteria, leaf litter bacteria and other protistans. Many also came to screen our anthophytes for possible new chemicals to fight cancer and AID. Many came looking for exotics such as orchids, aroids, gingers etc.

3. Many came for exotic animals such as lizards, turtles, birds, insects to trade. Many came as tourists but they went home and biopirates. Many came through a proper channel via EPU and local counter-parts and went back as collaborators in R & D. In the case of the latter, after a couple of publications, the locals were satified but they kept the Malaysian specimens in their labs working further on new innovations.

4. So there are a few kinds of biopirates, those without license to rob and those with license to rob. In the epic films only the strong became the pirates and the weaks became the victims. Normally the strong won and became the hero until the end. The weaks normally forgot what they had lost because they were handicapped and too innocents.

5. I am suggesting let the pirates-to-be and the Malaysian scientists work together on equal terms in honesty and sincerity for humanity. After all the Malaysian resources are world's resources before polity was introduced and practiced in the name of socialism and democracy.