HEALTH-ECUADOR: The Miracle of “Dragon’s Blood”

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QUITO, Nov 16 1999 (IPS) - The latex of the Croton lechleri tree species, for centuries considered by indigenous groups in the Amazon basin a “miracle” medicinal substance, is being used by international laboratories to create new medicines that can be used to treat several diseases.

Up to a few years ago, the red latex extracted from the Croton tree, known in Spanish as “sangre de drago”, was utilized by indigenous people and sold in health food stores in Peru and Ecuador, where it is most commonly used to treat coughs, colds, lung ailments, diarrhea, stomach ulcers, cuts, herpes infections, and open sores in the mouth.

A survey conducted among people who extract Croton latex in the Amazon region of Alto Napo in Ecuador found that 29 percent of respondents said they sold the latex to anyone interested in buying it locally, 53 percent sold it commercially, and 18 percent sold it either way.

Only in the past few years has the latex been sold commercially on the international market for botanicals, but a quick search on the Internet will come up with several foreign companies that sell the product.

In 1989, Lisa Conte founded the company Shaman Pharmaceuticals Inc. in California, on the premise that the development and use of traditional indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants could contribute to the discovery of new healing compounds.

Based on the knowledge of peoples of the Amazon basin and research by the company’s scientists, Shaman came up with two medicinal products elaborated from Croton latex: Provir, an oral medicine against a respiratory virus; and Virend, for use in treating herpes. These products, however, were not finalized and didn’t reach the market.

According to company spokespersons, Shaman was conducting research on Croton latex long before it first visited Ecuador. “Shaman’s patent on SP-303, a complex non-sinthesizeable molecular structure extracted from the latex of sangre de drago, was first filed in 1990, prior to Shaman’s first expedition to Ecuador.

“The research Shaman conducted in Ecuador on sangre de drago was in order to obtain further ethnobotanic verification of the medicinal properties it had already understood,” they stated.

The firm also manufactures a dietary supplement, SB-Normal Stool Formula, a standardised extract from Croton latex.

This product “contains the patented principal ingredient, SP- 303…which prevents fluid loss and promotes normal stool formation without causing constipation” like other drugs “that paralyze bowel motility,” they added.

Each 350-milligram tablet contains 250 milligrams of SP-303 and close to 100 milligrams of an anti-oxidant commonly found in fruits and vegetables.

Besides SP-303, three other components of Croton latex have been patented by other companies in the United States, although the plant that produces the latex has not been patented.

“No patent prohibits the traditional use of the latex nor the sale of the cortex, extracts or tablets in any country,” Shaman representatives pointed out.

One concern of environmentalists is that in the harvesting of large volumes of Croton latex for commercial ends, the trees are killed, which thus puts the species itself in jeopardy.

Shaman spokespersons pointed out that in the discussion on sustainability, indigenous knowledge and rights to natural resources, it was important to take into account the growth of the international market of botanicals.

There are two methods for harvesting the latex: felling the tree to extract the latex, or continual tapping, as in the case of rubber.

“To harvest large volumes of sangre de drago for commercial purposes, the tree needs to be felled, which is also the most common traditional method of extraction for market supply, practiced in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

“Our studies conclude that the tapping method of latex harvest is less sustainable than the traditionally-used felling method for large scale production,” said the company representatives.

According to a survey carried out independently in the Alto Napo province, 66 percent of people who extracted Croton latex felled the trees, 28 percent tapped the tree trunks, and six percent used both methods.

Croton trees “do not regenerate to allow continual tapping and latex production. For these reasons, the felling method…was chosen instead of the tapping method,” the spokespersons stated, adding that “the company has directly financed the reforestation of approximately 300,000 Croton trees.”

Shaman is working to sign a contract for access to genetic resources with Ecuador’s Ministry of the Environment. The contract would be the first of its kind between a private company and the Ecuadorian state.

While Shaman representatives said the firm was apparently the first to apply for such a permit, they added that an “interesting” point was that the company did “not want to conduct research to access genetic information from Ecuador’s natural resources.

“Shaman is only interested in obtaining a permit to buy latex of sangre de drago from communities and small enterprises that would like to sell it as a non-timber forest resource, essentially, as a commodity,” the spokespersons stressed.

They complained, however, that they had not received the same treatment as other firms at the hands of the Ecuadorian government.

But although the information used by Shaman in isolating a chemical compound from Croton latex “didn’t come from Ecuador originally, the Ecuadorian government has chosen to interpret the Cartagena Agreement in its most strict way, which considers that any use of a natural product or its byproducts is a matter of accessing genetic information.

“What is peculiar about this whole process is that if this is the criteria, as has been indicated by the Ministry of Environment, how come other companies that are currently buying medicinal plants and other natural products from Ecuador are not required to do the same?”

Shaman is currently waiting for Ecuador to finalise its legislation on access to genetic resources, which according to the Ministry of the Environment will be ready by year’s end. The legislation is to regulate the terms of the Cartagena Agreement.

“At that point, the Ministry will conclude its evaluation of Shaman’s proposal to buy latex of sangre de drago from Ecuador, which has been in progress for several years,” the company spokespersons added.

In the past, the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Institute on Forestry and Wild and Natural Areas (INEFAN) granted Shaman permits to export Croton latex. But the company representatives pointed out that Shaman had not purchased any plant material from Ecuador since 1994.

The spokespersons said the firm contributed 15 to 20 percent of the cost of its ethnobotanical expeditions to covering the needs of participating communities, while it provided both financial and technical assistance to centres for traditional medicine and for research activities.

And an as yet undetermined percentage of the proceeds are to go to the indigenous groups and countries with which the company has worked.

According to a report published by the Quito daily ‘El Comercio’, 13 Andean medicinal plants – including sangre de drago – are facing the risk of disappearing, which highlights the need for effective legal protection for the conservation of native species.