India to WTO: Help Us Protect Herbs, Tea, Yoga

[fannyfae]

This is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart. I have been studying Ayurveda for a few years now, and have done so because I am a very firm believer in it's value to the world at large. The Vedic scholars of India made these contributions to the world thousands of years ago, and it is arguably the oldest form of indigenous healing on the planet. Certainly it is one of the most well documented and complex modalities in existence.

Behind the cut is an article from the Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones / Wall Street Journal is a client of mine, so I feel ok reprinting it here. All credit has been cited. At any rate, this is an issue of ever increasing importance. As Indigenous knowledge and remedies gain popularity and more marketshare, corporations, the pharmaceutical industry in particular, is trying to 'patent' these things that have been around for millenia. They then try to pawn them off as "inovation", while turning around and charging the very people that they took these things from for the "privelege" of using what was their heritage to begin with. This is what has been termed ' biopiracy'. Please read the article, It's pretty fascinating.

Crossposted to my own journal.

( India to WTO: Help Us Protect Herbs, Tea, Yoga )