The search for valuable new products from among the world's stock of natural biological resources is mostly carried out by people from wealthy countries, and mostly takes place in developing countries that lack the research capacity to profit from it. Surely, the indigenous people should receive some compensation from it. But we must build a robust defense for this intuition, rooted in the West...

Recent trends in governance include a diminishing role of the nation state and an expanding role of non-government actors in the management of resources and services. The nation state, some argue, is ceding way to a plethora of institutions including global, multinational, regional, and local-level players. Within this multilevel, multi-institutional governance system the role of both the priva...

Background: Macroalgae are sources of bioactive compounds due to the large number of secondary metabolites they synthesize. The Antarctica region is characterized by extreme weather conditions and abundant aggregations of macroalgae. However, current knowledge on their biodiversity and their potential for bio-prospecting is still fledging. This study evaluates the antimicrobial and cytotoxic ac...

this manuscript is a review of a number of ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology texts and papers in order to arrive at current understanding and scope of ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology. it includes either a brief definition of both fields and presenting some examples on them. also it has a glimpse on the geographical coverage of research works throughout the world, important issue of property r...

To what extent can private-sector bioprospecting incentives be relied upon for the protection of biological diversity? The literature contains dramatically different estimates of these incentives, from trivial to quite large. We resolve this controversy by isolating the fundamental source of the discrepancy and then providing empirically defensible estimates based on that analysis. Results demo...

...................................................................................................... V LIST OF PUBLICATIONS ............................................................................ XI CONTRIBUTION REPORT .........................................................................XII CONFERENCE CONTRIBUTIONS ......................................................... XIII THESIS...

Bioprospecting, defined as the systematic search for valuable, molecules, genes and organisms in nature, has the potential to offer island countries a means to use biodiversity without disrupting nature; to add value to their natural resources; to ensure that such resources are protected and used in a sustainable manner; and to build the necessary skills to apply biotechnology in improving qual...