[at-l] FYI:National Park Service To Allow Commercial Bioprospecting

[greyowl at rcn.com]

I would like to make several comments on the comment of Beth Burrows.  The organism that that the companies are looking for are bacteria, specifically extremophiles, those living in ho thermal springs, high sulfur water or very salty water.  These organisms produce a number of extremely interesting and commercially valuable enzymes which are used for polymerase reaction (for cloning DNA and RNA), food processing and remediation of industrial waste streams.  There are many more important uses especially in the field of medicine.  New Zealand leads in this research where the biotechnology companies sample the soil, the water etc and pay royalties to the park systems.  Such searchs have been going on for years in the states, however the park service has not recieved one red cent from these companies.  Can you imagine what the national park service do with a sudden infusion of tens of millions of dollars (My friend Cactus Ed would say that they would squander it by building new ro!
ads).

Finally the Nationa Park service does exploit the wild life in their parks.  Most of the money generated by the park service comes from people who visit the parks to see the wildlife and/or the scenery.

Just my $0.02 worth.

Bob

Who originally joined this list in 1998
Whose first back pack was in 1960
Whose first AT hike (dayhikle) was 1959
Why do I hike?  To get away from people

Quote of the Day:  The real universe is always one step beyond logic.  Frank Herbert 'Dune'

>
>"This is, sadly, another step along the path of turning our national treasures into corporate booty," said Beth Burrows, Director of the Edmonds Institute (EI), one of the plaintiffs in the original lawsuit over this matter. "We support scientific research in the parks, but we are against commercializing the parks and their wildlife."