Activists propose halting biological patenting. (Environmental Intelligence).

In February 2002, a diverse group of activists from more than 50 countries convened the second annual World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where they put together a proposal to prohibit patenting living organisms. The now-annual social forum, which mirrors the Davos World Economic Forum, began last year in protest of the current state of global trade. But this year participants began to more clearly define their movement, which since the 1999 Seattle protests, has been marked largely by what it stands against.

The social forum's most prominent agenda item was to craft the Treaty Initiative to Share the Genetic Commons, which calls for an end to the genetic manipulation and legal "appropriation" of all forms of life. The measure challenges the WTO's trade-related intellectual property rule (TRIPs), which allows the patenting of plant varieties. Activist groups launched a plan to work with political parties to get the treaty initiative introduced in parliaments worldwide and onto the agenda of the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in August 2002.

Around the world, plant patents are stirring up controversy and pitting traditional ways of life against modern economic practices. In the United States, for example, farmer Larry Proctor recently sued two importers of Mexican mayacoba beans, demanding a six-cent per pound licensing fee. In 1999, Proctor was granted a U.S. patent for the yellow bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), which he originally purchased at a local market in Mexico. The Center for International Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) has filed a challenge to the patent, saying that DNA analysis shows the difference between Proctor's proprietary "enola" bean and Mexico's indigenous mayacoba bean is negligible.