Farmers Rights, Biodiversity and International Treaties

Farmers' Rights, Biodiversity and International Treaties Vandana Shiva Who owns biodiversity? Can intellectual contributions that modify or record biodiversity be the instruments to establish rights to ownership over these resources? What are the modes for just and fair compensation to contributors of knowledge and genetic resources? These are questions that are central to debates surrounding the conservation and use of biodiversity and genetic resources and are directly related to implementation of the Biodiversity Convention. These questions have also been raised at negotiations on intellectual property rights (IPRs) taking place in GATT and in the FAO.