Contribution short abstract:

Recent advances in biotechnology have assigned indigenous knowledge and genetic resources as novel commodification frontiers. This paper aims at analyzing the role of the Nagoya Protocol in the Amazon region as a driver of the capitalist appropriation of nature.

Contribution long abstract:

The idea of biodiversity as it has currently been mainstreamed in global science and political discourse is a very recent chapter of the relationship between humans and nature. The current sense of biodiversity as it was negotiated in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) implies the idea of quantitative megavariety of lifeforms. Until late 1970s when technological capabilities in biotechnology and the expansion of intellectual property rights (IPRs) made astonishing progress, biological diversity was less central to capitalism expansion, since homogeneity and mass production prevailed. Such condition has ultimately changed; biotechnology from the Global North has rapidly offered possibilities for the commodification of genetic resources (GRs). IPRs leveraged the legal positions of corporations and enabled them to exclude competitors and original producers. However, most of the global biodiversity remains unchartered by modern/western science and it is furthermore controlled by indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) around the world. Colonial-inherited inequalities have led companies to appropriate GRs and knowledge from IPLCs in what has been called “biopiracy”. In 2010 parties of the CBD agreed upon the Nagoya Protocol (NP), a binding agreement that aspires to provide a framework for the access and benefit sharing emanating out of the utilization of GRs. The NP has been deemed by critical voices as the legitimation of the commodification frontier involving GRs and traditional knowledge. On the other hand, proponents of green capitalism have hailed the NP as a tool for future societal transitions. We analyze this ongoing debate in the Brazilian Amazon.