We need to fight against this trend. We are not resigned to living in a world where the creative capacities of nature, of women and of communities of people are systematically denied and pirated. BAG calls for an end to patents on life forms that is currently being sanctioned by the World Trade Organization and enshrined in both national and international law. BAG is a grassroots organization that values life in all its diversity. BAG is opposed to the patenting of any life forms, anywhere, by anyone.
Food forms the natural link between community and life.
For this reason, recent developments in world trade and agricultural policy, life-patenting and genetic engineering strike us as attacks on the essence of those things we value most. This is maintained by present global economic and political relations. Most of the world's biodiversity is located in the South and biopiracy is an attempt by corporations to privatize and 'own' what is the common heritage of people in the South. BAG is also working to show that biopiracy is a form of class conflict, with corporations trying to eliminate communal property, destroy farmers' control and supplant nature's creative capacities in order to increase their own private profits. Please circulate this notice within your organization and to your membership.