Multinational companies want the DSI and the money from DSI
This autumn, governments, businesses, Indigenous communities and other representatives of civil society are to meet in Yerevan (Armenia) to discuss the protection of terrestrial and marine biodiversity. As more and more genetic components of this biodiversity are being digitised, multinational corporations want to seize the opportunity to exploit the benefit-sharing fund for the use of DSI, known as the “Cali Fund”. Their demands? To reduce the amount of the contributions and the ability of states to decide on national measures, and to widen the loopholes allowing them to bypass prior consent for the use of living organisms that make up biodiversity.
The Cali Fund: one year on, the promise is fading
Adopted at the COP16 on biodiversity in November 2024, the Cali Fund was officially launched on 25 February 2025. Its aim is to collect a share of the revenue generated by the use of digital sequence information (DSI), which is predominantly exploited by industries in the Global North and identified in biological resources that very often originate from the Global South. The fund’s promise is to ensure the sharing of benefits arising from the use of this DSI, which in particular fuels numerous patent applications. But one year after its launch, the fund remains largely ignored by the main users of DSI.
Seed Treaty’s MLS enhancement package risks legitimizing biopiracy and inequity
For some times now, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is discussing an expansion of its scope to all plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. Many stakeholders and observers are fearing this would end up in legitimizing biopiracy. As the next meeting will occur in Lima (Peru) starting in November, the 24th, Inf’OGM publishes the analysis of Nithin Ramakrishnan, from Third World Network, one of the stakeholders of this meeting.
WIPO opens more widely the door to biopiracy
