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Environment
Opinion
Stephen Minas
Stephen Minas

Macroscope | Hard-won global agreement on the sustainable use of our high seas is only the first step

  • The landmark UN treaty will clarify the legal right to exploit marine genetic resources in areas beyond national jurisdiction by establishing a fair regime for access and profit-sharing
  • The agreement must be ratified to take effect, and ratification should come sooner rather than later

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The Atlantic ocean is pictured off Lege-Cap Ferret, southwestern France, on March 11 last year. With the vast majority of marine species thought to be undiscovered and over 80 per cent of the ocean unmapped, it is likely that we have only scratched the surface of the health and other applications of marine living resources. Photo: AFP
Stephen Minas

The ocean covers more the 70 per cent of the world’s surface. For most of us, however, it tends to be out of sight, out of mind. Whether it’s the shipping that carries 90 per cent of international trade or the tiny phytoplankton that generate around half of our planet’s oxygen, the benefits we gain from the ocean rarely lead the news.

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Some call this “sea blindness”, and it also applies to international cooperation on the ocean.

In early March, nations meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York finalised a new agreement on the high seas. The agreement, resulting from over a decade of low-profile negotiations, could turbocharge the protection of the high seas – and the use of their living resources to advance science and medicine.
The ocean’s value to biotechnology comes in the form of marine genetic resources, defined in the draft agreement as “any material of marine plant, animal, microbial or other origin containing functional units of heredity of actual or potential value”. Genetic information gleaned from the astonishing diversity of marine life has enabled the production of multiple medical treatments and diagnostics – most commonly relating to cancer.
Marine genetic resources have also been used in the response to Covid-19. Microbes from hydrothermal vents were used in the development of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. The antiviral remdesivir was derived from the humble sea sponge.
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With the vast majority of marine species thought to be undiscovered and over 80 per cent of the ocean “unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored”, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it is likely that we have only scratched the surface of the health and other applications of marine living resources.
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