Biodiversity Prospecting in the Seas around Verata Tikina,Fiji

by University of the South Pacific

Partners:

University of the South Pacific (USP) The Rainforest Alliance SPACHEE

1997 Update

In 1996 the project experienced a major set-back when our bioprospecting partner, SmithKline Beecham shut down their natural products branch just as we were about to finalize the deal. After a long search for a new bioprospecting partner and extensive negotiation, on 7 May 1997, the University of the South Pacific (USP) signed a bioprospecting agreement with the Strathclyde Institute of Drug Research (SIDR) based in Glasgow, Scotland. This agreement was subject to considerable scrutiny on a regional, national and international level, including review by a panel of bioprospecting experts.

Rather than selling the plant and marine samples, these extracts are licensed for evaluation by a drug company. After one year, the samples may be further licensed by SIDR or returned. The USP in turn has an agreement with Verata Tikina, a county near Suva consisting of 7 villages, for priority supply of the organisms to be licensed. To date, about one hundred samples have been collected and supplied to SIDR from one sampling event. The expected cash benefit from these samples is approximately $US 20,000. The Verata Development Council will decide how to use this money after consultation with the project advisory committee.

As part of the project, USP students are learning how to evaluate extracts. Successful local screening of extracts and isolation of active components would greatly increase the potential returns from the commercial development of the active ingredient. Two screening methods have been developed to study the anti-cancer potential of these extracts. Efforts have begun to try to test the extracts for tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.

A highly successful two-week workshop in participatory, village-based biological monitoring was held in Verata in April. Local project staff and John Parks, BCN consultant, facilitated the workshop. The workshop generated such interest that, although only two representatives each from the seven Verata villages had been invited, twenty participants were attending by the end of the first week. Participants identified local marine resource management problems, developed action plans to meet these challenges and established monitoring plans to judge the success of these interventions. As part of this workshop, two tabu sites (off-limits areas) have been identified and approved by village meetings and leaders to help conserve biodiversity and also to allow comparison of the levels of organisms in harvested and nonharvested sites. The monitoring results will be reported to village meetings. Several monitoring exercises, counting a salt-water cockle important to the people of Verata have been carried out with excellent results.

The Government and NGO representatives who assisted in this workshop were impressed and enthusiastic. They felt the methodologies were effective for biodiversity conservation in Fiji, and asked for a training workshop to be held for representatives of relevant government departments and NGOs. This workshop was held in July. Thirty participants learned the techniques and theory of participatory biological monitoring methods and assisted the Verata people in a monitoring exercise.

On the policy side, in the first half of 1997, both USP and the government of Fiji approved detailed guidelines for research using biodiversity. We believe that these guidelines will help ensure that such research is carried out responsibly and that benefits are equitably shared. Participation in the BCN project has acted as a catalyst to speed the development of these policies and the international project advisory panel has made useful comments on the proposals in their draft form.

Successes and Challenges

"OK...So What?"

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