Meanings
- derogatoryuncountableThe appropriation of indigenous biomedical knowledge, especially by patenting naturally occurring substances.
[…] Although most of the public demonstrations during that meeting were aimed at globalization in general (and labor and biopiracy issues in particular), they also focused on trade issues related to genetically modified foods.
2003, Marion Nestle, Safe Food, University of California Press, →ISBN, page 2372 more examples
Capital now has to look for new colonies to invade and exploit for its further accumulation. These new colonies are, in my view, the interior spaces of the bodies of women, plants, and animals. Resistance to biopiracy is a resistance to the ultimate colonization of life itself—of the future of evolution as well as the future of non-Western traditions of relating to and knowing nature.
1997, Vandana Shiva, Biopiracy: the plunder of nature and knowledge, South End Press, →ISBN, page 5Alongside the nature targets, countries reached a historic agreement to develop a financial mechanism for sharing the benefits from drug discoveries, vaccines and food products that come from digital forms of biodiversity, known as digital sequence information or DSI, after rows about biopiracy in the lead-up to Cop15.
2022 December 19, Patrick Greenfield, Phoebe Weston, “Cop15: historic deal struck to halt biodiversity loss by 2030”, in The Guardian
Origin
From bio- + piracy, coined by Canadian environmentalist Pat Roy Mooney in the early 1990s.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Finnish biopiratismi
- biopiratismiappropriation of biomedical knowledge
French biopiraterie, biopiratage
- biopiraterieappropriation of biomedical knowledge
- biopiratageappropriation of biomedical knowledge
German Biopiraterie
- Biopiraterieappropriation of biomedical knowledge
Italian biopirateria
- biopirateriaappropriation of biomedical knowledge
Portuguese biopirataria
- biopiratariaappropriation of biomedical knowledge
Spanish biopiratería
- biopirateríaappropriation of biomedical knowledge
Cite this entry
biopiracy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/biopiracy
“biopiracy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/biopiracy. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “biopiracy,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/biopiracy.
Source: biopiracy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.