December 8, 1999
                  Web posted at: 8:46 a.m. EST (1346 GMT)

                  ATHENS, Georgia (AP) -- A group of Mayan Indians in the Mexican
                  state of Chiapas is demanding that a University of Georgia anthropologist
                  abandon a $2.5 million research project on the medicinal value of
                  plants used by the Mayans.

                  The Council of Indigenous Traditional Healers and Midwives of Chiapas, a
                  collective of 11 local Mayan groups, said the scientists are stealing local
                  knowledge and resources.

                  Council spokesman Sebastian Luna said the project's purpose is
                  "producing pharmaceuticals that will not benefit the communities that have
                  managed and nurtured these resources for thousands of years."

                  UGA ethnobiologist Brent Berlin has refused to comply with the request.

                  "This project is completely focused on the long-term well-being of the
                  Highland Maya, with whom I've been working for more than 35 years,"
                  said Berlin. "Once full information about what the project is about is known,
                  then there won't be opposition to it."

                  Berlin is part of a team of scientists exploring the pharmacological value of a
                  group of plants in the Highlands of Chiapas.

                  Other agencies involved in the project include the National Institutes of
                  Health, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Agency for International
                  Development, and a Mexican university, El Colegio de La Frontera Sur.
                  Molecular Nature Ltd., a British company, is the project's commercial
                  partner.

                  Berlin said the project has established a nonprofit trust, PROMAYA, to
                  make sure possible financial benefits "flow back to the communities."