On an idyllic spit of lush landscape at the University of Hawai'i sprout the massive heart-shaped leaves of hundreds of taro plants.

Native Hawaiians hold the plant sacred, which is why many are now demanding that the university relinquish three patents claiming ownership to taro varieties developed by one of its scientists.

It's just the latest collision between indigenous people and commercial interests over so-called biological prospecting, the growing practice of scouring the globe from the Amazon to the deep ocean for exotic plants, microbes and other living things with biological properties ripe for commercial exploitation.

A United Nations report concluded that 62 percent of all cancer drugs were created from bioprospecting discoveries.

The patenting of such living things has exploded in the last few years from less than a dozen in 2000 to more than 100 last year, according to UH researcher Stuart Donachie.

"There are things here worth looking for," said Donachie, who has discovered five new bacteria on remote islands in the state. "They could provide something new that benefits society."

For example, the key ingredient in the breast cancer drug Taxol owned by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. is taken from the bark of the yew tree and Wyeth's kidney transplant drug Rapamune comes from Easter Island soil.

Such bioprospecting is on the rise and has huge potential for good, according to the researchers trekking to obscure corners of the world in search of exotic and undiscovered life.

The expeditions could ultimately make hazardous waste cleanup more affordable, reduce pollution and make better medicines — if genetic discoveries can be exploited and controlled.

Pharmaceutical companies view bioprospecting as an alternative drug development process. Other companies are looking to nature for industrial applications such as using an enzyme found in deep sea vents to streamline ethanol production while still others are hunting Antarctica for useful microbes.

But tough ethical questions are being raised about allowing private companies to patent and profit from nature: Who owns the living thing that yields the revenue? Are companies pirating knowledge and resources from indigenous people?

"With more pharmaceutical companies turning to exploring other new technologies as sources for new drugs, it is becoming increasingly clear that poor countries might never realize the full benefits of their genetic endowments," the United Nations said in April.

The area is mostly unregulated, especially in international waters, and there are mounting calls to establish legal frameworks for such work.

A bill in the Legislature to ban bioprospecting has stalled, though lawmakers are expected to soon release an inventory of all bioprospecting agreements that the UH has with industry.

The Convention on Biological Diversity has been ratified by 188 countries, but not the U.S., and enforcement provisions appear weak, said intellectual property attorney Seth Reiss.

Nowhere is the bioprospecting issue more contentious than in here in Hawai'i, the most biologically diverse state in the country and home to more than 22,000 species of plant and animal. Close to 9,000 of those species are found only here.

The patenting of the taro plants is just the latest dust-up between Hawaiians and UH.

Eduardo Trujillo, the researcher who developed the three disease-resistant strains and patented them, said his work saved the sacred plant from devastation. "The patents are intended to protect the new hybrid taro cultivars for exclusive use by our farmers," Trujillo said in an e-mail reply to questions from The Associated Press.

According to Hawaiian tradition, the cosmic first couple gave birth to a stillborn, Haloa, from whose gnarled body sprang the broad-leafed taro plant.

The Hawaiian people, it is believed, came from a second brother, making the taro plant part of a common ancestry.

"Our genealogy arises from the taro," said Hawaiian activist Mililani Trask. "The taro patents are a desecration."