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public about the National Park Service plan to allow commercial "bioprospecting" in
America's National Parks. Feel free to Contact Us for more information.






What is Commercial Bioprospecting?
Bioprospecting is, quite literally, prospecting for microscopic resources, the genetic and biochemical information found in wild plants, animals, and microorganisms. Uses of products developed from material discovered through bioprospecting include a wide array of consumer products, industrial remedies, and pharmaceuticals.

As the demand for bioprospecting has grown, so have the places from which the bioprospecting companies have sought to extract organisms, including Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone Park scientists have discovered, for example, that the Park's thermal features contain a microbial community with a biological diversity similar in degree to tropical rainforests.

Background
In late September the National Park Service (NPS) made another bold step toward the commercialization of the natural resources in our National Parks. Specifically, the Park Service released its court-ordered Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) that could clear the way for corporations to "bioprospect" for microorganisms in national parks like Yellowstone. If the Park Service gets its way, corporations will be allowed to mine, exploit, patent, and profit from living organisms that we are supposed to be stewarding.

The controversy of bioprospecting in the national parks first came to light, interestingly enough, during the ceremony commemorating the 125th anniversary of Yellowstone National Park in August 1997. During the ceremony, the Park Service announced that it had entered into an agreement with the Diversa Corporation to give Diversa a "non-exclusive right to 'bioprospect' microorganisms in Yellowstone in exchange for an agreement to share potential financial returns (i.e. benefits sharing) with the Park.

That announcement was met with a lawsuit filed in 1998 by the Edmonds Institute, the Alliance for Wild Rockies, and the International Center for Technology Assessment, who opposed commercial bioprospecting and - at the least - called for an environmental assessment of its consequences. In 1999, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled in favor of the public interest groups, suspended the agreement between the Park Service and Diversa, and ordered an environmental assessment in accordance with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. Now, seven years later, the Park Service has published the court-ordered environmental assessment, entitled "Benefits-Sharing," and opened a 90-day public comment period. Hard copies and CDs of the document can be gotten by writing to benefitseis@nps.gov.
Download the DEIS (pdf) here >>

The Park Service's DEIS outlines three possible plans of action: A) No action, thus allowing continued bioprospecting without the so-called benefit-sharing agreements; B) To allow commercial bioprospecting but require benefits-sharing agreements and some degree of public disclosure; and C) prohibit commercial bioprospecting, only allowing noncommercial or public interest research and development of nation park resources.

As a result, a group of organizations, including Edmonds Institute, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Alliance for Wild Rockies, and Wilderness Watch, have launched a national grassroots initiative to educate the public on the Park Service's actions and to encourage the public to rally against commercial bioprospecting in national parks. Initially, the campaign seeks to generate public comments on the DEIS that support "option C."