Conservation and ethnobotanical programs of the Bioactive Agents from Dryland Biodiversity of Latin America Project

HUTCHINSON, B.; SUAREZ, E.Y.; FORTUNATO, R.H.; BEESKOW, A.M.; BYE, R. ; MONTENEGRO, G.; TIMMEMERMANN. B.

Arid Lands Newsletters

The University of Arizona

Lugar: Tucson; Año: 2000 vol. 48 p. 22 - 32

1092-5481

The Bioactive Agents from Dryland Biodiversity of Latin America project is an extension of a research project begun in 1993 with funding from the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group (ICBG) program. This program is sponsored by a consortium of U.S. federal agencies, now including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and is coordinated by NIH´s Fogarty International Center. It addresses biodiversity conservation and the promotion of sustained economic development through drug discovery from natural products using ethnobotanical information wherever possible. The first project (1993-1998), titled Bioactive Agents from Dryland Plants of Latin America, was one of five awards granted under the ICBG program. The second project (1998-2003) is one of six.Headed by Principal Investigator Barbara N. Timmermann, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Arizona´s College of Pharmacy, the project involves collaborations in the U.S. with the G.W.L. Hansen´s Disease Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; American Home Products Corporation´s Wyeth-Ayerst Research Laboratories and American Cyanamid Company; and other units at the University of Arizona (Office of Arid Lands Studies and Department of Management Information Systems). Partners in Latin America are scientists from the Pontifícia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile; from the Instituto de Recursos Biológicos, Buenos Aires; the Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia; and the Centro Nacional Patagonico, Chubut, in Argentina; and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, in Mexico.The successful collaboration of the members of this ICBG project required detailed international agreements among the various participants which defined work and funding commitments, ownership of materials, licensing rights and distribution of future financial benefits, if any. In addition, the project was designed so that plant collections, inventories, and other activities are in agreement with the appropriate domestic and international laws, such as laws on endangered species (CITES) and plant conservation. Necessary permits and licenses are obtained from local authorities and from landowners if private land is involved.This international project seeks to discover and develop pharmaceuticals and crop-protection agents from plants and microbes of arid and semi-arid ecosystems in Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. While plants and microbes from arid ecosystems are well known to produce a variety of natural products as defensive agents and poisons, they have received much less attention than those from the tropical rainforests as potential sources of useful biological agents. Despite the commonly held perception that they are unproductive and desolate, dryland environments are diverse in character and support one-fifth of the world´s population. More than 80 percent of people living in tropical and subtropical drylands are rural and are largely dependent on local plant resources for food, fuel, shelter, medicines, and many other products. Thus, it is essential to work for the preservation and conservation of these resources as well as to document what is known about them.