The battle between animal rights groups and organisations trying to export monkeys to the US for biomedical research is set to heat up again. The Nepal Biomedical Centre is trying to obtain permission to export a sampling of Nepali monkeys, both bred in captivity and from the wild.

There's strong opposition-almost 1,200 people from 21 countries signed a petition against the plans last year. The International Primate Protection League, Animal Nepal, PETA, and Wildlife Watch Group (WWG) are all lobbying hard to reverse the Nepal government's 2004 wildlife farming policy. The policy allows the Washington National Primate Centre and Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research and their Nepali partners Nepal Biomedical Centre to catch, breed, and export Nepali monkeys to Washington and Texas.

WWG and other groups say they will use community pressure and legal action to counter the policy, which WWG Chairman Mangal Man Shakya says, "contradicts the 1973 National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, and was announced without any consultation with local communities or conservationists, or even within the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation."

Nepal is one of the few countries in the world that still allows the use of great apes for biomedical research. Next door, India banned primate exports in 1977 when the state realised its monkeys were being used in gruesome radiation experiments.

Jemima Sherpa