Intellectual Property Rights and Biodiversity Conservation
An Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Values of Medicinal Plants

Provides a detailed analysis of the economic and scientific rationales for biodiversity conservation.

Timothy Swanson (Edited by)

9780521635806, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 June 1998

288 pages, 17 b/w illus. 5 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.46 kg

"This book gives a lot of interesting information about intellectual property rights and biodiversity conservation....The book does not pretend to give an answer on how biodiversity conservation is to be achieved, but gives hints and counsels in which direction solutions could be found....I would like to express my hope that the discussion about biodiversity conservation will finally lead to concrete results. I am convinced that this book is a step in the right direction." Stefan Gafner, Ecoscience

The urgent need to ensure the conservation of biological diversity is now widely recognised, but practical measures to protect endangered species and habitats are still carried out on a small scale and generally limited to developed countries. This volume provides a detailed analysis of the economic and scientific rationales for biodiversity conservation. It discusses the justification for, and implementation of intellectual property rights regimes as incentive systems to encourage conservation. An interdisciplinary approach is used in the book, encompassing fields of study that include evolutionary biology, chemistry, economics and legal studies. The arguments are presented using the case study of the use of medicinal plants in the pharmaceutical industry. The book will be of interest and relevance to a broad spectrum of conservationists, from research students to policy makers.

List of contributors
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. Diversity and sustainability: evolution, information and institutions Timothy Swanson
Part A. Plant Communities and the Generation of Information: 2. Chemical diversity in plants Linda Fellows and Anthony Scofield
3. Ethnobotany and the search for balance between use and conservation Jennie Wood Sheldon and Michael J. Balick
Part B. The Value of Plant-Generated Information in Pharmaceuticals: 4. The pharmaceutical discovery process Georg Albers-Schönberg
5. The role of plant screening and plant supply in biodiversity conservation, drug development and health care Bruce Aylward
6. The economic value of plant-based pharmaceuticals David Pearce and Seema Puroshothaman
Part C. The Institutions for Regulating Information from Diversity: 7. The appropriation of evolution's values: an institutional analysis of intellectual property regimes and biodiversity conservation Timothy Swanson
8. Preserving biodiversity: the role of property rights Ian Walden
Part D. The Importance of Cultural Diversity in Biodiversity Conservation: 9. Medicinal plants, indigenous medicine and conservation of biodiversity in Ghana Katrina Brown
10. Biodiversity and the conservation of medicinal plants: issues from the perspective of the developing world Mohamed Khalil
Index.

Subject Areas: Applied ecology [RNC]