USA Profit Sharing From Research in National Parks

USA Profit Sharing From Research in National Parks





    
 
January 2007  - The National Park 
Service is finalizing its plan for profit sharing with 
corporations that extract organisms from America's national 
parks and develop commercial uses for those organisms. 
Under the latest version of the proposal, any of the nearly 
400 national parks could enter into a "benefits-sharing 
agreement” with corporate research firms. 
The original motivation for the plan arose out of a 1997 
effort by the California biotechnology firm Diversa 
Corporation to extract microorganisms living in Yellowstone 
National Park's geysers for commercial use. 
Three alternatives are explored in the proposal, which was 
issued in the form of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement, 
DEIS. The public comment period is open through Monday. 
The companies would provide the National Park Service, NPS, 
with monetary or in-kind compensation for any profits derived 
from use of park resources, but under the alternative 
preferred by the Park Service, public disclosure of the 
royalty or other financial terms of these agreements would be 
optional, not required. 
The Beehive geyser at Yellowstone National Park. The world's 
first such reserve, Yellowstone was established by act of the 
U.S. Congress in 1872. It is now also a World Heritage Site. 
(Photo courtesy NPS) 
"Our national parks are not corporate laboratories,” said Jeff 
Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental 
Responsibility, PEER, a national association of workers in 
natural resources agencies. 
PEER is urging the Park Service not to allow commercial 
development of park resources. "If the Park Service is 
determined to walk this treacherous path, it needs to do so in 
the light of day without deals cloaked in proprietary 
secrecy," Ruch said. 
Several thousand scientists conduct studies each year 
involving national park research specimens. 
The commercial use or sale of research specimens themselves is 
prohibited by regulation, but the commercial use of knowledge 
derived from specimens through research is not prohibited. 
Commercial use of research results has, in the past, been left 
up to researchers without involvement from the NPS and without 
any further obligation or responsibilities to the Park 
Service. 
In 1998, Congress enacted the National Parks Omnibus 
Management Act which authorizes the NPS to enter into 
benefits-sharing agreements with researchers. 
But in 1999, following a legal challenge over a 
benefits-sharing agreement between Yellowstone National Park 
and Diversa, a federal court directed the Park Service to 
review the potential impacts of the agreement. 
The latest proposal, in the form of a Draft Environmental 
Impact Statement, DEIS, responds to the court’s directions and 
examines potential environmental impacts of adopting 
benefits-sharing throughout the National Park System. 
Currently, the Park Service does not negotiate 
benefits-sharing agreements. This would remain the case under 
Alternative A, the no action alternative. 
The Park Service would continue to issue research permits, and 
research specimens would continue to be usable for approved 
research purposes - including activities that might lead to 
discoveries that could be useful for health care, nutrition, 
agriculture, environmental management, industrial, or other 
processes with potential commercial or other economic value. 
Choosing Alternative A would have adverse impacts on 
Yellowstone National Park’s natural resource management 
program, the Park Service says. The agreement between 
Yellowstone and Diversa, currently suspended, would be 
nullified. Under that agreement, Diversa used its proprietary 
techniques and databases to perform two genetic analyses 
needed for Yellowstone natural resource management at no cost 
to the park. 
The Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park is the 
largest hot spring in the United States, and the third largest 
in the world, next to those in New Zealand. (Photo courtesy 
NPS) 
In addition, an up-front payment of $20,000 per year for five 
years would not come to the NPS. That amounts to just 1.14 
percent of the FY 2002 operational funding for natural 
resource management identified in Yellowstone’s Business Plan, 
but Diversa also would not make any performance-based payments 
to the park, an amount that is unknown because the agreement 
is suspended. 
Under Alternative B, benefits-sharing would be allowed. 
Specific terms and conditions describing the various 
non-monetary and monetary benefits would be negotiated 
individually for each agreement. 
Under Alternative B, benefits-sharing would be allowed. 
specific terms and conditions describing the various 
non-monetary and monetary benefits would be negotiated 
individually for each agreement. 
Within Alternative B, there are three choices. 
Alternative B1 requires disclosure of all terms and 
conditions, including financial compensation. 
Alternative B2 allows optional disclosure of all terms and 
conditions, this is the Park Service's preferred alternative. 
Under this alternative, all benefits-sharing agreements would 
be made available to the public in their entirety upon request 
unless one or more parties objected to the release of any 
specific information for reasons allowed under the federal 
Freedom of Information Act, FOIA. An objecting party would 
have to demonstrate that the information was proprietary or 
that disclosure would harm an interest protected by FOIA. 
Valuable micro-organisms may live in the yellow mud of 
Yellowstone National Park. (Photo courtesy USACE) 
A non-confidential summary of such information, including the 
total monetary benefits generated by the benefits-sharing 
agreement, would be prepared and included in the agreement for 
release to the public upon request. 
Alternative B3 does not permit disclosure of any royalty rate 
or related information at all. Still, a non-confidential 
summary of royalty or financial information, including the 
total monetary benefits generated by the benefits-sharing 
agreement, would be prepared and included in the agreement for 
release to the public upon request. 
The Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, CRADA, 
proposed by the Park Service in this DEIS is consistent with 
the terms and conditions of the initial agreement between 
Yellowstone National Park and Diversa, a company that develops 
high-performance specialty enzymes for uses such as biofuels. 
But if Alternative B is adopted, Yellowstone and Diversa would 
have to negotiate a new or amended CRADA, if Diversa wanted to 
commercialize research results based on study of specimens 
collected after 1998. At that time, their research permit 
required negotiation of a benefits-sharing agreement before 
research involving NPS specimens could be commercialized. 
Under Alternative C, the Park Service would prohibit research 
specimen collection for research involving any potential 
commercial applications in all units of the National Park 
System. This is the alternative favored by PEER. 
The National Parks Conservation Association, NPCA, an 
educational and advocacy organization based in Washington, DC, 
wants to see benefit sharing agreements but supports 
Alternative B1. 
"The public should have a right to view the entirety of any 
agreement," the conservation group says. 
Research takes place in many of the U.S. national parks. Here 
divers conduct research on coral reproduction and settlement 
in Florida's Biscayne National Park. (Photo by Richard Curry 
courtesy NPS) 
In addition, the NPCA says, "Park resources and visitor 
experience must not be directly or indirectly adversely 
affected," by research activities. 
The NPCA would like to see all scientific information 
resulting from any agreement shared with the park, and any 
compensation received should be used to benefit resource 
protection and research. 
"No benefits sharing agreement should be developed that 
results in resources being used for commercial purposes," the 
NPCA says. "Any research contemplated under benefits sharing 
agreements cannot result in the direct commercial use of those 
samples removed from parks." 
The Park Service agrees with that position, stating in the 
DEIS, "No element of any alternative would authorize any 
consumptive use of any park resources, or otherwise change the 
existing general prohibition against consumptive harvesting of 
park resources for any reason." 
But PEER argued in its comments on the DEIS that agency-wide 
promotion of commercial research could also be used to 
facilitate mineral exploration, such as proposals for drilling 
in Alaska's Katmai National Park, seismic exploration for oil 
in national parks or creating markets for rare plants or 
animals from parks. 
In addition, warned Ruch, "corporate research agreements may 
be used to circumvent park wilderness protections." 
Ruch also sees the possibility of "questionable revolving-door 
arrangements with park officials who negotiate the corporate 
revenue-sharing deals." 
The Park Service says that issuance of a research permit would 
not necessarily involve a benefits sharing agreement, because 
many research projects do not have the potential to result in 
commercially valuable discoveries. 
"In the event that research activities involved the use of 
traditional knowledge or other valuable proprietary input from 
a Native American community or other source, it would be the 
responsibility of the park and the researcher to include such 
individuals or groups in any benefits-sharing arrangement as 
appropriate," the NPS says. 
Under this proposal, the NPS seeks to foster technological 
advances but would forbid its own employees or former 
employees from earning any revenue from inventions they 
develop. 
"Park managers should not be given direct fiscal incentives to 
recruit corporate partners,” Ruch said. "The danger is that a 
park will relax its administration of resource safeguards in 
pursuit of a new revenue stream." 
The DEIS is open to public comment through Monday, January 29. 
To find it online click here.