The 1991 INBio-Merck Deal
Student’s Name
Affiliation
Course
Date
The 1991 INBio-Merck Deal
The deal raises ethical issues of introducing an economic value on natural resources as well as the claim by INBio that this new recognition about the value of biodiversity shall offer incentives for biodiversity protection. The INBio-Merck contract, with careful planning and consideration, has the prospective to be a valuable tool for justifiable expansion and conservation of resources. The National Museum had withdrawn its offer to no longer locate the national plant collection at INBio. Hence the INBio was to develop its own plant reference which put the INBio-Merck at a discrete deal. The INBio was known for its success in biodiversity hence when it signed contracts it would receive 10% the amount while it did the most work of conservation, training and transferring of technology. This agreement means the fauna species and vast flora existing helps pay for the project as well as help safeguard the biodiversity of the rich rainforest region (Aylward, Bruce A., & Jaime Echeverria, 1993).
The procedure to keep this precious species has much work at the effort to educate and promote INBio from the demand of the bio diverse countries and science institutions. In addition, the government taxes highly the company and this increases the cost to the importing company Merck. The government makes more profit than the company. Hence when the company realized this it decided to avoid the need for political approval by the government with regards to donate and thereby leaves Costa Rica to make a discrete transaction so that the whole amount can go to INBio and also to the Conservation. The species are nature own properties and can be in a place for a short duration depending on the favorability of a habitat. It is an added advantage to any country that conserve this species. Therefore the country should conserve and provide a favorable condition for the species to exist (Curci, 2010). This deal favors the organization and its developing country when it captures the whole amount without having a centralized administrative that divide the fund to other competing countries taking time to decide on how to spend the amount. National institute of Biodiversity INBio is a non-profitable research organization created by scientist from Costa Rica. INBio signed a 2year bio prospecting agreement with US major pharmaceuticals Merck in 1991 worth 1milllion in exchange for samples that had been screened. This brought about interest to the developing countries who wanted finance from biodiversity conservation. Since the company is non- profit making organization, the government was to distribute this money to the upcoming countries.
Work cited
Aylward, Bruce A., & Jaime Echeverria. The Economic Value of Species Information and Its Role in Biodiversity Conservation: Costa Rica’s National Biodiversity Institute. International Institute for Environment and Development, 1993. Print.
Curci, Jonathan. The Protection of Biodiversity and Traditional Knowledge in International Law of Intellectual Property. Cambridge [U.K.: Cambridge UP, 2010. Print.
