Interview with Silvia Rodriguez, Pensamiento Solidario and Red de Coordinación en Biodiversidad, for Fighting FTAs

A 12-minute interview with Silvia Rodriguez, sociologist and grassroots organizer on environmental issues based in Costa Rica. This interview addresses the opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in Costa Rica leading grassroots movements in Central America forcing a hotly contested national referendum in the fall of 2007, which lead to vote in support of the CAFTA agreement by a slim majority of 51% in disputed results. This interview outlines the specific concessions forced upon Costa Rica through CAFTA including the signing of the Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms, which according to critics leads the way to the potential corporate patenting of elements of Costa Rica’s rich bio-diversity and cell-lines of indigenous people. — Stefan Christoff