Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela have joined forces to keep marauding multinationals off their biological resources. These signatories to the Andean Pact decided upon drastic steps to protect their home grounds, After a new us intellectual property legislation allowed co-porations to patent genetic information taken from any bio- logical source after making minor changes in the genetic material.

This, while granting the industries exclusive rights over section of the biosphere, would spell doom for the vulnerable developing nations. Plants and animals used and bred locally generations would become "property" of the multinationals, who will sell the "improved" versions back to the nations at a profit.

The Andean Pact coun- tries have come up with a joint proposal which envisages a "common system of conservation, protection and access to genetic resources , seeking to strike a balance between commercial needs of the sub-region and the rules that will protect the intellectual property rights of local genetic material. The proposal also recognises and defends indigenous people's knowledge and practices.