The Tribune

• AG slams former Gov’t’s science law

• Changes to be finalised imminently

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Attorney General yesterday said he and environmental chiefs are aiming to complete a “page by page” review of an Act that has brought scientific research in The Bahamas to a near-standstill “by the end of next week”.

Senator Ryan Pinder told Tribune Business that an evaluation of proposed reforms to the Biological Resources and Traditional Knowledge Act would be completed in the same timeframe as he blasted the former Minnis administration for what he termed “a poor excuse for legislative governance”.

Acknowledging that the law, which was implemented on April 1 last year, had “multiple deficiencies” both in its content and execution, he added that the Davis administration also expected to have the “mutually agreed terms” - which will govern relations and financial terms between the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection (DEPP) and commercial researchers conducting exploration in The Bahamas - prepared by end-April.

Asserting that one of the existing Act’s “key deficiencies” was the failure to distinguish between commercial research and that conducted by non-profits, conservation groups and students, subjecting them all to the same regulatory regime, Mr Pinder said the revised law will be fully compliant with the Nagoya Protocol, the worldwide treaty that governs access to genetic resources and the fair/equitable sharing of benefits derived from their discovery and use.

“We have engaged environmental law experts to review the legislation in the context of international best practices, with global benchmarks, and consistent with the Nagoya Protocol,” the Attorney General told this newspaper. “They have come back to us with a benchmark and suggested amendments to the legislation.

“Myself and the DEPP director [Dr Rhianna Neely-Murphy] are doing a page turn through the legislation, looking at the amendments. It’s a page-by-page review and evaluation of the amendments, and we should hopefully be finished with that review by the end of next week.”

Members of the Bahamian and scientific research community yesterday called for assurances that the necessary reforms will be “taken over the line” (see other article on Page 1B). Mr Pinder, meanwhile, said the “mutually agreed terms” draft was also under review by DEPP “experts”, and added: “We expect to reach agreement on the mutually agreed terms by the end of this month.

“One of the key deficiencies in the existing legislation was the difference between commercial and non-commercial research. That was a clear deficiency, and that is a deficiency we are addressing. We have templates for different agreements for commercial and non-commercial, and are adjusting the legislation to be more mindful of the differences.”

The DEPP and Attorney General’s Office are also “going through” the regulations that will accompany the revised Act, with the former set to develop a framework for how they will operate.  The revised legislation has to be approved by Cabinet before it goes to Parliament, and Mr Pinder said both the Prime Minister and the Government’s highest decision-making body are “well aware of these deficiencies” having tasked himself and his office with addressing them.

“There are a lot of deficiencies in how the prior administration looked to implement the Act and, frankly, the implementation of it was very poorly planned... It’s a poor excuse for legislative governance. I am in the chair and I will fix it.”

The Biological Resources and Traditional Knowledge Act was billed as plugging a loophole said to have enabled foreign exploitation of The Bahamas’ biological and genetic resources without this nation earning a cent. It sought to establish a regulatory, permitting and revenue-sharing regime with companies seeking to research and exploit this nation’s marine genetic resources.

The legislation aimed to close a gap identified in an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) report, which exposed that the Bahamian people are earning nothing from foreign exploitation of resources that have produced over 100 “new natural products”. The document disclosed that this nation was gaining zero commercial and financial benefits from the research activity it permits annually in the waters of its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

This is despite the granting of more than 100 research permits per year, most of which are to institutions based in the US and Canada. The report revealed that many of these research initiatives had resulted in patent applications being made in the US, “a large cluster” of which covered “a marine microbe” found in Bahamian waters and its use in the lucrative global pharmaceutical industry.

The IDB said one of the “biomolecules” generated from this Bahamian microbe strain had made it to “clinical phase II” drug trials in 2014, but the failure of successive administrations to establish a commercial and regulatory regime to ensure this nation gains a just share of any resulting revenues/profit from such exploitation of its resources has deprived it of a potentially “significant” income source.

“The Bahamas used to issue over 100 research permits per year, about 90 percent of which were issued to foreign institutions (generally from the US and Canada) enabling access to genetic resources, mostly in the marine environment,” the IDB report said.

“A study published in 2012 calculated that 125 new natural products were discovered in EEZ in the 2000s. A preliminary review of the patent databases of the US revealed that a significant number of research initiatives conducted in The Bahamas applied for US patents.

“A large cluster of patents covers a marine microbe originating from The Bahamas, the production of biomolecules with this specific Bahamian strain and their use as pharmaceuticals. For one of these molecules, clinical phase II tests were announced to start in 2014,” the report continued.

“These inventions based on a Bahamian genetic resource might be developed into commercially successful drugs with significant revenues. Due to the lack of a regulatory access and benefit (ABS) regime in The Bahamas and appropriate contractual provisions, almost no benefits are flowing back to the country from these and other cases of utilisation and commercialisation of Bahamian genetic resources.”