Bio-pirates raid trees in Borneo swamps

The Bintangor tree, which grows in swampy ground in the Malaysian part of Borneo, may have its uses. But it certainly doesn't look like it is worth £250m ($NZ857m).

It looks like what it is – a rubber tree that grows to a height of about 30 feet, with a diameter of five inches and long waxy leaves. The native Dyak people, who still live in the jungle in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, know that the poisonous latex that oozes from it can be used for stunning fish, and that a poultice made from the bark will ease headaches and skin rashes.

But, even after an American scientist turned up and took away samples, none of the Dyaks realised what vast potential riches the tree contains.

But, if tests carried out in the United States are to be believed, the humble bintangor contains buried treasure: a treatment for HIV and Aids.

Clinical trials show that a drug called Calanolide A, originally extracted from the tree's latex, reduces the levels of the Aids virus in the blood. It also works against tuberculosis.

The drug is several years away from being sold commercially, but if it is – and if it is as profitable as other anti-HIV drugs – it could earn as much as $857m a year. And the Dyaks may not see a penny.

The discovery of Calanolide A in the jungles of Sarawak is one of the great successes of a new profession: bio-prospecting. Just as treasure hunters in the past panned silt on the beds of streams in search of gold, so bio-prospectors sift through living matter in search of equally lucrative commodities. Their raw material may be trees, plants, shrimps, butterflies, spiders, toads or microbes in soil. The treasure they seek may be a hardy strain of rice, a flea treatment for pet dogs or a new kind of dye.

But the most lucrative area of biosprospecting is in pharmaceuticals, and it is here too that the most pointed ethical questions are being raised.

To growing numbers of people, in Sarawak and around the world, much of what passes for scientific research is actually an act of biological copyright infringement perpetrated upon native people – not so much bio-prospecting as bio-piracy. The issues are legally, ethically and politically complex, and in Sarawak they are being debated fiercely.

- INDEPENDENT