Abstract: Bio-piracy is an increasingly serious problem for China and many other developing countries rich in biodiversity. Biotechnological companies in developed countries grab genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge illegally from developing countries, and then make excessive profit through bio-prospecting and product patent protection from the markets of the countries providing the genetic resources. From literature, databases and relevant websites, a total of 108 biopiracy cases of the past 30 years were gathered involving agriculture, bio-pharmacy, cosmetics and other industries for analysis in line with the following six aspects, that is, application area,target resourse,user institution,usage of the resource, origin of the resource, benefit-sharing implementation and bio-piracy in China. Furthermore, in view of the biopiracy problem and shortage of legislation and institutional organization for protection of genetic resources in China, it is proposed in this paper to work out national laws and regulations for acquisition of genetic resources and related traditional knowledge and profit sharing, including implementation of “prior informed consent (PIC)” for acquisition of genetic resources and “mutually agreed terms (MAT)” for ensurance of fair and equitable benefit-sharing between providers and users of the resources, and meanwhile, to strengthen capacity-building for governmental organizations in management.  

Key words: bio-piracy, benefit-sharing, genetic resources, traditional knowledge, biodiversity