Catholic Institute for International Relations. (1993) Biodiversity: What's at stake? London: CIIR.

Biodiversity: What's at stake?, a booklet in the Catholic Institute for International Relations' Comment series, provides an excellent primer on the key issues in biological diversity, offering a glossary, several information tables, a list of suggested readings and a clear and concise analysis of the social and political issues in plain, easy-to-understand language. The pamphlet introduces the topic of biodiversity, looks at current trends in conservation, the impact of biotechnologies and the implications of intellectual property rights and the patenting of life. CIIR considers biodiversity within a framework that takes into account the relative paucity of genetic material found in the Northern hemisphere and the current, alarming rate of erosion of biodiversity in the South, with grave implications predicted, especially with regards to subsistence living, food production and the development of medicines. Regardless of the relative genetic imbalances, however, the CIIR points out that "it is the peasant farmers of developing countries who provide the genetic basis for the North's US$17 billion plant breeding industry" (9). Conservation efforts are similarly evaluated. and it is pointed out most tend to privilege powerful Northern nations. It is estimated, for example, that more that two thirds of the seeds stored in gene banks are under control of the North. On-farm conservation is offered as a viable strategy, the underlying premise of which recognises the need to strengthen people's control over their seeds and plant varieties. "It is time not only to recognise that farmers can and do conserve, use and improve plant and animal genetic resources," CIIR argues, "but that their approach should be supported by the formal system rather than impeded by it" (13).

When turning to biotechnology, CIIR offers a similarly sharp analysis of its control by the North, the concentration of its ownership by transnational corporations, and the integration of pharmaceutical, pesticide and seed industries, all within the private sector. The impact on farming practices is particularly alarming as "food production is increasingly becoming an assembly line in which interchangeable components are produced. This industrialisation of agriculture allows the food and chemical companies to choose whichever component is cheapest, thus further undermining the power of the developing country producers to set the conditions for the trade" (22). As the CIIR points out, when economic factors are given overweening precedence, research tends to work against diversity and in support of uniformity, even in those areas where the interested corporate parties claim to be working towards more sustainable agriculture.

Economic factors inevitably introduce property considerations into the mix and in this case the focus is on intellectual property. The CIIR offers a usefully impartial definition of patents as a "compromise between society (public interest), and an inventor (private interest), whereby the inventor discloses his/her invention in return for an exclusive monopoly on it" (24). It clarifies the debate that surrounds intellectual property rights by arguing that "the difference in perspective on the patent system essentially depends on whether you import or export technology. Importers want access and the freedom to build on other innovations. Exporters are keen to maintain control over their lead in the marketplace" (25). When the products being traded are life forms, things become still more complicated. The CIIR offers the complete text of the Genetic Resources Action International's (GRAIN) 12 Reasons for 12 EEC memberstates to say: no to patents on life, which provides an excellent analysis of the social, ethical and political implications of legal developments in this area.

The final section of Biodiversity: What's at stake? offers a discussion of various strategies which may be employed to help resist the encroachment of biotechnologies on everyday life and the intolerable erosion of biological diversity. These include strengthening and recognising farmers' rights and the value of the "informal" sector, that is "work carried out at the local level by farmers and community organisations" (35), work which has fostered the biological diversity upon which much of the world's economy rests today. Overall, Biodiversity: What's at stake? provides an excellent analysis of the myriad issues involved in current debates about biodiversity and biotechnology. The topics are examined in terms of their global impacts, and from a point of view that takes consideration of the broad social, political and historical complexities at work.

See also Mooney, "The Conservation and Development of Indigenous Knowledge in the Context of Intellectual Property Systems," and Shiva, "Biodiversity and Intellectual Property Rights."