According to Myers and others, 44 per cent of all vascular plants and 35 per cent of all species of the four vertebrate groups are confined to only 25 biodiversity hotspots, which comprise only 1.4 per cent of the Earth’s surface. Among the 25 hotspots surveyed, the vast majority is located in the territories of least developed or developing countries, where the biodiversity is not converted into economic richness. Biological resources have been used as models for the generation of solutions to various challenges faced by our society in the recent past and the acquired knowledge about natural products and processes has proven to be a generator of income. However, the countries and populations which are the real owners of those natural assets and knowledge often do not have their rights recognized and are not included in the value chains created around these natural resources. Consequently, the use of genetic resources (GRs) and associated traditional knowledge (TK) extracted from countries rich in biodiversity has been a source of dissatisfaction. The absence of appropriate authorization from the real custodians, low-income countries and their traditional populations, as well as the lack of recognition and retribution for the use of these resources by researchers around the world are common sources to the discontentment.