In India, there was a dust-up stirred by the activist Research Foundation for Science and Technology, ticked by Monsanto getting a wheat patent supposedly derived from the traditional 'Nap Hal'. The Foundation asserted that the patent specification originated from indigenous research. Monsanto sold its European wheat & barley business to RAGT Genetique in May 2004. That company voluntarily withdrew the patent over political pressure. Neem patents have also been contentious, as have other patents associated with traditional crops.

In Hawaii, the University of Hawaii has been collaborating with the private San Diego-based Diversa, which specializes in bioprospecting. "We are taking spoonfuls or handfuls of dirt or water and we aren't disturbing the environment or depleting the resources in any way," Diversa spokesman Martin Sbarsky explained about the alchemic trick of turning mud pies into gold.

Hawaii is the most biologically diverse state in the U.S., with more than 22,000 species of flora and fauna, almost 9,000 of which are found only in Hawaii.

Le'a Kanehe, a lawyer with the Hawaiian nonprofit Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism, put on a thin veil with, "It's not about the money so much. It's really about our relationship with the land. Our rights aren't being recognized." Of course, Le'a's statement is like a snake chasing its tail, as the rights he speaks of ultimately translate into ka-ching.

Hawaii's life-sustaining relationship with the land is profitable primarily through tourism, which drives the economy. Next comes government largesse, a principal source of income. High labor costs have made Hawaiian agriculture increasingly non-competitive. Hawaii's relationship with the land, as the agri-utopians would have it, isn't exactly paying the rent.

Then there's the sacred taro plant. According to Hawaiian legend, the cosmic Earth Mother and Sky Father gave birth to a stillborn, Haloa, from which sprang the taro plant. Haloa's brother is the legendary progenitor of the Hawaiian native population. "Our genealogy arises from the taro," proclaims Hawaii activist and taro-head Mililani Trask. Taro root comprises a staple indigenous food: poi. The wily Eduardo Trujillo patented three strains of taro plant (USPP12772, USPP12361, USPP12342), to which Mililani curses, "the taro patents are a desecration."

"With more pharmaceutical companies turning to exploring other new technologies as sources for new drugs, it is becoming increasingly clear that poor countries might never realize the full benefits of their genetic endowments," the United Nations proclaimed in April 2005. As our founding fathers might say, we hold some truths to be self evident - corporations driven by the profit motive are splashing out the R&D to bioprospect, thus developing new drugs & other products that might otherwise never come to realization without patents as an incentive; it's that crazy capitalism/intellectual property thing again.

There is a Convention on Biological Diversity, which has been ratified by 188 countries, but not the United States. The Convention lacks realistic Robin Hood enforcement provisions.