Update on the Brazilian primate researcher case 8 Aug 200718 Sep 2017 Nature [subscription required] is reporting that Brazilian ecologists are threatening a strike if Marc van Roosmalen is not released. You’ll recall that I posted on his case before. Van Roosmalen is a maverick primate researcher who has effectively been imprisoned for 16 years for political reasons. Brazilian researchers are justifiably concerned that if he can be, so can they, in the course of their doing their ecological research. Nature reports: …in 2002, van Roosmalen was charged with taking four monkeys from the forest northwest of Manaus without permits. The charges led to a federal congressional inquiry, a criminal case and, in June this year, a prison sentence of 15 years and 9 months. Van Roosmalen was convicted of keeping monkeys in a rehabilitation facility at his Manaus home without permits; auctioning names of new primate species to wealthy donors; and selling materials that had been donated to his former employer, the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA) in Manaus. The sentence has other researchers in Brazil worried. “My main concern is the precedent,” says ecologist Regina Luizão of INPA in Manaus. “If this is happening to him now, how can we tell that we are not next?” The ostensive concern, they say, is biopiracy, but it increasingly looks like this is being used, in other places as well as Brazil, as a way to control access to the natural resources by those wishing to exploit it, rather than stopping that sort of exploitation. Ecology has a habit of saying things governments and vested interests would rather not hear. Ecology and Biodiversity Politics
Politics Moral atheists 16 May 2009 I find it highly ironic that the people taking the moral stand here are the atheists: It does not matter if it prevented some sort of attack. It is still a crime, it is still wrong, and those responsible for it deserve criminal prosecution. No amount of talk about 9/11… Read More
History Reality, academe and the liberal bias 21 Feb 2008 The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article discussing a study as to why there are so few conservative academics, in the light of the campaign by conservative activist David Horowitz to propose and “academic bill of rights”. The answer? John Stuart Mill put it best: What I stated was,… Read More
Censorship More on ISP filtering 6 Dec 2008 At my other blog here. Also see Ars Technica: Here’s an idea: if the Australian government actually finds child porn, nuclear bomb making manuals, and the like on the Internet, why not do their best to find the perpetrators and put them behind bars? That way we get to keep… Read More
I think you are right, but “sapismo” may also be playing a role here. It’s sad to say, but ego plays a big role in science, and in Latin America the big sapos (toads) often tolerate only small non-threatening sapos in the same pool. When a smaller sapo starts to grow, it is eaten alive. One of the more interesting sapismo stories was that of a Brazilian herpetologist, who was fired from his post when he became a zoological celebrity. As a down-and-out persona-non-grata zoologist he started to write popular songs of the romantic genre, became a muscial celebrity and made a small fortune. He returned to the zoological pool as a very large sapo. There is still hope for van Roosmalen.
The ostensive concern, they say, is biopiracy, but it increasingly looks like this is being used, in other places as well as Brazil, as a way to control access to the natural resources by those wishing to exploit it, rather than stopping that sort of exploitation. Ecology has a habit of saying things governments and vested interests would rather not hear. There is no idea so pure, good and well-intentioned that someone can’t find a way to exploit it.