The Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) with cooperation of TVG at KLCC — a major local cinema — is screening “Temengor – Biodiversity In The Face of Danger” for free. The film is a documentary on Temengor, part of the Belum-Temengor forest complex up north in Perak. It’s the largest continuous forest in Peninsular Malaysia and is currently facing deforestation. The documentary itself was produced by Novista and is being screened in conjunction of the Belum-Temengor Campaign. The campaign itself was launched earlier this year and I’ve given it a passing mention back on Earth Day 2006. I won’t talk about the film per se but instead, I want to share my opinion on possible alliance the campaign organizers could forge to make their effort more successful (tag).
The documentary mentioned several reasons why Temengor should be preserved. One of the reasons concerns the pharmaceutical industry. The narrator in the document said that deforestation there threatens the possible development of new drugs. She went on further that tropical flora species are major contributors to drugs development. Therefore, each day of deforestation reduces humankind’s chance to discover new medicines to fight diseases. One sentence struck me so deeply and it roughly goes something like this: “just as mankind starts to open up the treasure chest, the content begins to disappear.”
After the documentary ended, there was a Q&A session conducted by a representative from MNS. The audience — there were about 30 people in the hall — had a discussion and I shared my thought with everybody. I asked the society’s representative whether the organizers had come in touch with the pharmaceutical industry. My rationale for contact is simple: destruction of the forest reduces the chance the pharmaceutical industry to discover new drugs and essentially, chance to make more money through patents. In essence, the pharmaceutical industry has every incentive to stop deforestation and protect its potential goldmines.
Representative answered that while it’s a good strategy, Malaysia doesn’t have a strong patent law, especially when it comes to the protection of local interest. Somebody followed-up on it and asked whether the government plans to draft a relevant law on it. The representative said that there’s already a draft on it. Given how the current free trade agreement with the United States is heading which is giving lots of stress on intellectual property, I suspect that law would come sooner than later.
In The Carbon Wars by Jeremy Leggett, the author wrote that climate changes cause damages and adversely affect the insurance, or rather the reinsurance, industry. With every damage caused by climate change-related disasters, the cost of business for the industry goes up. Hence, the insurance industry has every reason to support action to slow down climate change. Right now, the reinsurance industry is one of the industries that are actually taking a proactive stance to combat human-induced climate change.
Similar alliance could be created between the greens and the pharmaceutical industry. It’s in the industry’s best interest to protect the its revenue source. Thus, this rationalizes an alliance between the greens and the pharmaceutical industry.
So far, the organizers have only contacted with the banking industry. While the banking industry’s involvement in the Belum-Temengor campaign is encouraging, I don’t believe the banking industry has a strong incentive to save the environment as the pharmaceutical industry does.
p/s – when the Pope said something that isn’t too admirable, regardless his intention, for me it was like “here we go again”. I’m glad that the Pope later apologize and hence possibly closed the controversy down. But it seems the apology isn’t sincere:
VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI “sincerely regrets” offending Muslims with his reference to an obscure medieval text that characterizes some of the teachings of Islam’s founder as “evil and inhuman,” the Vatican said Saturday.
But the statement stopped short of the apology demanded by Islamic leaders around the globe, and anger among Muslims remained intense. Palestinians attacked five churches in the West Bank and Gaza over the pope’s remarks Tuesday in a speech to university professors in his native Germany.
Moreover, some Christians are disappointed with the Pope’s apology. They said the Pope shouldn’t have apologize. Sorry is the hardest word for them it seems.
Whatever it is, a Catholic school in South Bend isn’t happy regardless of what the Pope said. Reason is, the school — Notre Dame — just got kicked in the ass by a school called Michigan:
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Take that, Notre Dame.
No. 11 Michigan finally put a Big Blue bruising on the second-ranked Fighting Irish in a 47-21 rout Saturday — the most points scored against Notre Dame at home in 46 years.
And Michigan won’t say sorry to Notre Dame. Nope. No way.