News

Park officials, business interests, enviros debate potential pay offs of ‘bioprospecting’

A few years ago, corporate researchers discovered something valuable in one of
Yellowstone National Park’s deep, colorful thermal pools.

By MIKE STARK
Gazette Wyoming Bureau

A tiny microorganism found by San Diego-based Diversa Corp. had an enzyme that’s
now being synthetically reproduced and marketed to oil companies. Patented as Pyrolase,
the enzyme can be pumped into oil wells that are no longer producing and help squeeze
out any remaining oil in the fractures.
Diversa stands to make money from its new product. Yellowstone Park, where the enzyme was found,
won’t see a dime.
"We can’t collect a thing," said John Varley, head of Yellowstone’s Center for Resources.
At one point, Yellowstone had a deal with Diversa
to share some of the profits. The agreement was
struck down in court, but the company still thinks
Yellowstone should get a piece of the action.
"We’re definitely in favor of it," said Hillary
Theakston, Diversa’s manager of investor relations. "It
only seems fair to share the benefits with the place of
origin."
As the "bioprospecting" industry continues to
develop, the National Park Service is trying to find a
way to ensure that parks throughout the country can
share in the benefits. Last month, the Park Service
launched work on an environmental impact statement
on sharing the financial benefits of bioprospecting.
For opponents, the issue raises a fundamental
question about whether and how national parks
should be used for commercial purposes.
"It used to be universities looking to do research
in Yellowstone for the public interest. Now you have
these multinational corporations in there with the sole
purpose to make money," said Ryan Shaffer,
ecosystem defense director for the Missoula-based
Alliance for the Wild Rockies. The group is one of those that sued over Yellowstone’s agreement with Diversa.
"This is changing how we use our parks, quietly and subtly," he said.
Companies that stand to profit from research in national parks are supporting the benefit-sharing proposal.
They say they are simply using information they find in microbes that live in places like Yellowstone, not
removing them.
"This is a no-brainer," said Val Giddings, vice president for food and agriculture at the Biotechnology
Industry Organization, a trade association for companies and universities involved with uses of biotechnology to
make new products. "It’s a way of extracting information that leaves all of the natural resources completely
intact."

Key discovery

Careful scientific study of Yellowstone’s thermal-tolerant microbes started in 1966, when Dr. Thomas Brock
figured out a way to grow one of the microorganisms that lived in the 160-degree waters of the Mushroom Pool
in the Lower Geyser Basin.
A synthesized version of the bacterium, known at Thermus aquaticus, eventually became a crucial part of
DNA fingerprinting and has earned billions of dollars for the Swiss patent holder, Varley said.
At the time the discovery was made, Yellowstone was considered a "free site" and researchers didn’t have
to share any of their commercial rewards with the park.
If the park had been operating under a benefit-sharing agreement – and getting between .1 and 10 percent
of the gross proceeds as proposed – the park could have netted as much as $100 million on that single
enzyme, Varley said.
Besides making a lot of money for the Hoffman-LaRoche pharmaceutical company, Brock’s discovery
provided a key breakthrough for research into the tiny organisms that survive in Yellowstone’s thermal features.
Since hot-spring microbes, called thermophiles, thrive at temperatures that would kill most other forms of
life, their enzymes often turn out to be more robust and resilient than those of other microbes. Modern
biotechnology often relies on enzymes as catalysts for biochemical reactions in genetic engineering,
fermentation and production of antibiotics.
In the years following Brock’s discovery, other microbes have been found that are useful in producing
ethanol, treating agricultural food waste, improving animal feed and increasing juice yields from fruit. NASA is
studying thermophiles that might help determine if there’s life on Mars.
Scientists believe that fewer than 1 percent of species that live in Yellowstone’s unique concentration of
thermal features have been identified. Interest in the issue runs high for companies hoping to gain access.

The EIS

In 1997, Yellowstone officials signed an agreement with Diversa, one of the country’s leading
biotechnology companies, to share profits from research within the park.
The park was sued in 1999 and a federal judge ordered the Park Service to put the benefit-sharing deal on
hold until a full environmental study was completed.
The Park Service completed a scaled-back study called an environmental assessment last year and then,
concerned about more lawsuits, recently decided to do a more detailed and comprehensive environmental
impact statement.
"We’re excited they’ve decided to do an EIS," said Beth Burrows of the Edmund Institute, another group that
sued over the Diversa agreement. She said she hopes the Park Service will take a "blunt" look at
bioprospecting in the parks. "This is an important change in national policy," she said.
Varley said the difficulty of conducting an environmental impact statement on benefit-sharing is that the
impacts are hard to find.
"How do you assess the environmental impact of a financial instrument?" he said.
The park, through a permitting process, already requires bioprospecting companies and other researchers
to follow stringent rules about not degrading the natural resources in the park.
Environmental protections are "already built in," Varley said.

Commercialization concerns

But Burrows, Shaffer and others worry that benefit-sharing agreements between companies and the
national parks are a big step in converting parks into commercial operations.
"This is clearly a move in that direction," Burrows said. "Does that erode the parks as we know them, the
whole notion of stewardship? What are the implications if we say yes to that?"
Shaffer said it’s important to look at what the benefit-sharing agreements could mean to the park system
50 years in the future. Specifically, he’s worried the parks will become too dependent on the money from
research projects and, as park funding from other sources dwindles, places like Yellowstone will compromise
their resources to pay the bills.
"Are we going to be relying on this commercialization for funding?" he said.
Giddings, with the biotechnology industry group, agreed that the park system is underfunded.
"I would argue with them that Congress is not supporting our natural resources. Anyone who has been to
Yellowstone National Park has seen there are huge, unmet needs," he said.
But, he added, national parks could make money from bioprospecting without losing any resources.
"You’re extracting the information," Giddings said. "It’s an opportunity to take all that genetic variation … and
turn it into a concrete value."
Giddings said that environmental groups’ opposition to bioprospecting and benefit-sharing elsewhere in
the world is having disastrous unintended consequences.
"They’re compelling developing countries to rely on extraordinarily destructive technologies like mining and
logging that we could replace with information technologies," he said.
Shaffer said he’s worried that no one knows all of the potential effects of bioprospecting in Yellowstone’s
thermal pools. That issue and others needs to be closely examined before the Park Service moves ahead with
benefit-sharing, he said.
"I hope they listen to the public and take their time because once these things are abused and gone, we
can’t go back," he said. "There’s no pressing need to make this happen right away. Things are well preserved
today. We need to make sure we take a really good look at this and take our time."

Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?tts=1&display=rednews/2002/05/24/build/wyoming/bioprospecting.inc

Posted in:

Sorry, we couldn't find any posts. Please try a different search.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.