Intellectual property rights and biodiversity conservation : an interdisciplinary analysis of the values of medicinal plants (paper) An Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Values of Medicinal Plants

The urgent need to ensure the conservation of biological diversity is now widely recognised, but practical measures to protect endangered species and habitats are still carried out on a small scale and generally limited to developed countries. This volume provides a detailed analysis of the economic and scientific rationales for biodiversity conservation. It discusses the justification for, and implementation of intellectual property rights regimes as incentive systems to encourage conservation. An interdisciplinary approach is used in the book, encompassing fields of study that include evolutionary biology, chemistry, economics and legal studies. The arguments are presented using the case study of the use of medicinal plants in the pharmaceutical industry. The book will be of interest and relevance to a broad spectrum of conservationists, from research students to policy makers.

Preface, 1. Diversity and sustainability: evolution, information and institutions, Part A. Plant Communities and the Generation of Information: 2. Chemical diversity in plants, 3. Ethnobotany and the search for the balance between use and conservation, Part B. The Value of Plant Generated Information in Pharmaceuticals: 4. The pharmaceutical discovery process, 5. The role of plant screening and plant supply in plant conservation, drug development and health care, 6. The economic value of plant-based pharmaceuticals, Part C. The Institutions for Regulating Information from Diversity: 7. The appropriation of evolution's values: an institutional analysis of intellectual property regimes and biodiversity conservation, 8. Preserving biodiversity: the role of property rights, Part D. The Importance of Cutural Diversity in Biodiversity Conservation: 9. Medicinal plants, indigenous medicine and conservation of biodiversity in Ghana, 10. Biodiversity and the conservation of medicinal plants: issues from the perspective of the developing world, Index.