08 March 2004 01:10
PNG`s intellectual rights not fully protected, Minister Duma says
08 MARCH 2004 PORT MORESBY (Pacnews) --- The Intellectual Property Rights Convention does not fully protect Papua New
Guinea's (PNG) traditional information on biodiversities, The National reports.
This has resulted in the loss of invaluable information to foreign researchers who have used it to generate money for
themselves, Environment and Conservation Minister William Duma said.
Mr Duma was speaking on his return from Malaysia, where he accompanied Deputy Prime Minister Mosses Maladina to the
7th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Mr Duma told reporters at Waigani that there is a need for scientific biological inventories in PNG to understand
what we have, what we are losing and what we must conserve.
He said PNG needed an appropriate policy regime to protect our traditional knowledge on biodiversity utilisation.
Currently, Intellectual Property Rights Convention does not adequately address the lack of adequate laws governing
and regulating local knowledge and access to biological diversity and its utilisation.
Mr Duma also said that sciences and technologies must be adopted to observe international conventions on intellectual
property rights in terms of their benefit sharing and costs.
"The benefits must find their way back to the source of origin," he said.
Meanwhile, Minister Duma has praised Inter Oil Ltd for compliance with environmental plans over the construction
phase of Napa Napa oil refinery near Port Moresby.
Minister Duma was impressed with the refinery's progress following a guided tour of the project last week
accompanied by department Secretary Dr Wari Iamo and senior officers of his department.
"This state of the art oil refinery using modern and environmentally friendly technology would be one of the
biggest downstream processing plants ever in Papua New Guinea and we should be proud of it," Minister Duma
said....
(THROUGH ASIA PULSE)
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