No one knows for sure if Portsmouth will return all or retain some specimens for future research. As a matter of fact, we cannot do anything should Portsmouth decide to go back on their word. Our hands are also tied if it patents its research processes and results from the Thai fungi.

The fungi controversy is actually the tip of the bio-theft iceberg which is smacking Thailand. And we're fighting a losing battle if we do not make efforts to change the rules of the game.

Here is the situation: We are rich in bio-resources which are essential materials for pharmaceutical and agro-industry giants to develop new drugs and plant varieties. But we are poor in technology and research money resources.

In the name of academic knowledge, we let foreign researchers - many of whom are funded by powerful trans-nationals in drug and agriculture-related products - to study our bio-resources. Worse, we also allow them to take the specimens out of the country freely.

Biotech director Dr Sakarin Bhumirattana recently admitted that no records exist to detail what foreign researchers have taken out of Thailand.

Such laxity has allowed those researchers - and the trans-nationals which sponsor them - to own the specimens, to patent both the research processes and results and to solely benefit from them commercially.

Under this first-come, first-serve patenting rule, poorly-funded Thailand will never be able to benefit from its own bio-resources. For whatever scientific findings Thai scientists achieve through scant state support, they are most likely to repeat what foreign researchers have already found and patented.

The recent mara khinok let-down was a case in point. Thailand was excited at the possibility of developing Aids medicine from mara khinok, an indigenous bitter gourd. But the elation fizzled out when we later learned that we cannot do anything with our mara khinok because a similar research process and result has already been patented in the United States.

Anyone can see how this state of affairs will eventually lead to bio-technology monopoly within rich, industrial nations.

Anyone can also see how unjust this system is. More often than not, foreign scientists do not only develop new drugs from Third World plants culled by indigenous farmers for generations. They also take freely from the farmers' knowledge about medicinal plants. Yet, poor farmers receive nothing from their plants and their knowledge.

It's even worse in the Jasmatic rice case. RiceTech Inc, a US-based rice company, did not even invest in biotech research with Jasmine rice. It just stole the name to mislead their consumers.

How do we protect ourself better? The fungi controversy highlights the emergency for Thailand to stop foreign researchers' free access to local bio-resources as well as the need to develop local laws to protect plants and organisms as well as knowledge.

Unfortunately, Thailand has none of these measures in place. Meanwhile, the World Trade Organisation might even change the rules of the patenting game next year to benefit trans-nationals even further by wiping out local protection systems.

We cannot allow this to happen.

State inertia in the Jasmati case, however, shows that we cannot depend on the authorities to defend national interests. We must make people realise this is their battle. And we must unite with people in other Third World countries. It is the only way to fight the bio-piracy war.

Sanitsuda Ekachai is Assistant Editor, Bangkok Post. email : <sanitsuda@bangkokpost.net>