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suffer from an important limitation. They call for nature protection only at a high level of generality. For example,
No impact to biodiversity
Sagoff 97 (Mark, Senior Research Scholar at the Institute for Philosophy and
Public policy in School of Public Affairs at University of Maryland, , INSTITUTE OF
BILL OF RIGHTS LAW SYMPOSIUM DEFINING TAKINGS: PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE
FUTURE OF GOVERNMENT REGULATION: MUDDLE OR MUDDLE THROUGH? TAKINGS
JURISPRUDENCE MEETS THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT, William and Mary Law
ecologists rejected the opposing view, "the notion that species overlap in function to a sufficient degree that
removal or loss of a species will be compensated by others, with negligible overall consequences to the
kind of sparse and miserable world depicted in the movie Blade Runner could provide a "sustainable" context for
the human economy as long as people forgot their aesthetic and moral commitment to the glory and beauty of
the natural world. n351 The Assessment makes this point. "Although any ecosystem contains hundreds to
thousands of species interacting among themselves and their physical environment, the emerging consensus is
that the system is driven by a small number of . . . biotic variables on whose interactions the balance of species
are, in a sense, carried along." n352 [*907] To make up your mind on the question of the functional
redundancy of species, consider an endangered species of bird, plant, or insect and ask how the ecosystem
would fare in its absence. The fact that the creature is endangered suggests an answer: it is already in limbo as
What crucial ecological services does the blackcapped vireo, for example, serve? Are any of the species threatened with
extinction necessary to the provision of any ecosystem service on which humans
depend? If so, which ones are they? Ecosystems and the species that compose them have
changed, dramatically, continually, and totally in virtually every part of the United States. There is little
ecological similarity, for example, between New England today and the land
where the Pilgrims died. n353 In view of the constant reconfiguration of the biota,
one may wonder why Americans have not suffered more as a result of
ecological catastrophes. The cast of species in nearly every environment
changes constantly-local extinction is commonplace in nature-but the crops still
grow. Somehow, it seems, property values keep going up on Martha's Vineyard in spite of the tragic
disappearance of the heath hen. One might argue that the sheer number and variety of
far as ecosystem processes are concerned.
creatures available to any ecosystem buffers that system against stress. Accordingly,
we should be concerned if the "library" of creatures ready, willing, and able to colonize ecosystems gets too
small. (Advances in genetic engineering may well permit us to write a large number of additions to that
In the United States as in many other parts of the world, however, the
number of species has been increasing dramatically , not decreasing, as a result
of human activity. This is because the hordes of exotic species coming into
ecosystems in the United States far exceed the number of species that are
becoming extinct. Indeed, introductions may outnumber extinctions by more than ten to one, so that the
"library.")
United States is becoming more and more species-rich all the time largely as a result of human action. n354
[*908] Peter Vitousek and colleagues estimate that over 1000 non-native plants grow in California alone; in
Hawaii there are 861; in Florida, 1210. n355 In Florida more than 1000 non-native insects, 23 species of
mammals, and about 11 exotic birds have established themselves. n356 Anyone who waters a lawn or hoes a
garden knows how many weeds desire to grow there, how many birds and bugs visit the yard, and how many
fungi, creepy-crawlies, and other odd life forms show forth when it rains. All belong to nature, from wherever
they might hail, but not many homeowners would claim that there are too few of them. Now, not all exotic
species provide ecosystem services; indeed, some may be disruptive or have no instrumental value. n357 This
also may be true, of course, of native species as well, especially because all exotics are native somewhere.
Certain exotic species, however, such as Kentucky blue grass, establish an area's sense of identity and place;
others, such as the green crabs showing up around Martha's Vineyard, are nuisances. n358 Consider an analogy
[*909] with human migration. Everyone knows that after a generation or two, immigrants to this country are
hard to distinguish from everyone else. The vast majority of Americans did not evolve here, as it were, from
hominids; most of us "came over" at one time or another. This is true of many of our fellow species as well, and
they may fit in here just as well as we do. It is possible to distinguish exotic species from native ones for a
period of time, just as we can distinguish immigrants from native-born Americans, but as the centuries roll by,
species, like people, fit into the landscape or the society, changing and often enriching it. Shall we have a rule
that a species had to come over on the Mayflower, as so many did, to count as "truly" American? Plainly not.
When, then, is the cutoff date? Insofar as we are concerned with the absolute numbers of "rivets" holding
ecosystems together, extinction seems not to pose a general problem because a far greater number of kinds of
mammals, insects, fish, plants, and other creatures thrive on land and in water in America today than in
is endangered, provide ninety percent of the food the world takes from plants. n364 Any new food has to take
"shelf space" or "market share" from one that is now produced. Corporations also find it difficult to create
demand for a new product; for example, people are not inclined to eat paw-paws, even though they are
delicious. It is hard enough to get people to eat their broccoli and lima beans. It is harder still to develop
consumer demand for new foods. This may be the reason the Kraft Corporation does not prospect in remote
places for rare and unusual plants and animals to add to the world's diet. Of the roughly 235,000 flowering
plants and 325,000 nonflowering plants (including mosses, lichens, and seaweeds) available, farmers ignore
virtually all of them in favor of a very few that are profitable. n365 To be sure, any of the more than 600,000
species of plants could have an application in agriculture, but would they be preferable to the species that are
Has anyone found any consumer demand for any of these half-million
or more plants to replace rice or wheat in the human diet ? There are reasons that farmers
now dominant?
cultivate rice, wheat, and corn rather than, say, Furbish's lousewort. There are many kinds of louseworts, so
named because these weeds were thought to cause lice in sheep. How many does agriculture really require?
cultural, and moral reasons that command us to respect and protect the natural world. These spiritual and
ethical values should evoke action, of course, but we should also recognize that they are spiritual and ethical
values. We should recognize that ecosystems and all that dwell therein compel our moral respect, our aesthetic
appreciation, and our spiritual veneration; we should clearly seek to achieve the goals of the ESA. There is no
reason to assume, however, that these goals have anything to do with human well-being or welfare as
economists understand that term. These are ethical goals, in other words, not economic ones. Protecting the
marsh may be the right thing to do for moral, cultural, and spiritual reasons. We should do it-but someone will
The hypothesis that greater species diversity begets heightened ecosystem stability
may seem correct at first glance. Most people intuitively assume that the pond
ecosystem has a better chance of thriving from year to yeareven in adverse
conditionsif it has a wider variety of species living there. That assumption,
however, is supported by little scientific proof. On the other hand, many studies
provide compelling evidence that diversity does not promote stability and may even
be to its detriment. Several studies also suggest that if species diversity does exist,
it is based on ecosystem stability rather than vice versa. The Paramecium Studies of
N. G. Hairston One of the early experiments to critically damage the greaterdiversity-equals-greater-stability argument came from the N. G. Hairston research
group at the University of Michigan in 1968. In this study, the group created artificial
communities of bacteria, Paramecia, and/or predatory protozoa grown on nutrient
agar cultures. Each community contained more than one trophic level. In other
words, the communities contained both predators and prey, as do the macroscopic
food webs readily visible in a pond: A fish eats a frog that ingests an insect that
attacks a tadpole that scrapes a dinner of bacterial scum from a plant stem. In
Hairston's case, the researchers watched the combinations of organisms in a
laboratory instead of a natural setting. Several patterns emerged. In one series of
experiments, the researchers combined prey bacteria, which represented the lowest
link in the food chainthe first trophic levelwith Paramecium. The bacteria
included Aerobacter aerogenes, and "two unidentified bacilliform species isolated
from a natural habitat." The Parameciumtwo varieties of P. aurelia and one variety
of P. caudatumfed on the bacteria and so represented the second trophic level. As
researchers increased the diversity of the bacteria, the Paramecia thrived and their
numbers increased, at first suggesting that diversity caused stability. However,
when the researchers looked more closely at the effects of increasing diversity on a
specific trophic level, the story changed. They added a third Paramecium species to
communities that already contained two species, and then watched what happened.
The data showed that stability was based on which Paramecium species was
Is biodiversity loss a
and may not translate well to the more complex systems common in nature.
Although they noted that several studies imply a relationship between diversity and
ecosystem stability, they added, "At present, too few experiments have
been conducted to draw convincing generalizations."
If you know anything about species and extinction, you have already read one
seen the flaws in their model. Taking a few extinct mammal
species that we know about and then extrapolating that out to be extinction hysteria right
now if we don't do something about global warming is not good science. Worse, an integrative biologist is
clear.
saying evolution does not happen. Polar bears did not exist forever, they came into existence 150,000 years ago
how did it make it through peer review? Read this bizarre justification of their methodology; "If you look only at
the critically endangered mammals--those where the risk of extinction is at least 50 percent within three of their
generations--and assume that their time will run out and they will be extinct in 1,000 years, that puts us clearly
greater
extinctions occurred when Europeans visited the Americas and in a much shorter
time. And since we don't know how many species there are now, or have ever been, if someone makes a
outside any range of normal and tells us that we are moving into the mass extinction realm." Well,
model and claims tens of thousands of species are going extinct today, that sets off cultural alarms. It's not
wants to keep the panic button fully engaged by emphasizing that the small number of recorded extinctions to
date does not mean we are not in a crisis. "Just because the magnitude is low compared to the biggest mass
extinctions we've seen in half a billion years doesn't mean they aren't significant."
It's a double
Lit Indicts
Nature and biodiversity are all social constructs that have
turned into buzz words
Oksanen 04 (Department of Behavioural Sciences and Philosophy, University of
Turku 4
Markku Philosophy and biodiversity P 4)
Nature was the predominant concept in classical Greek philosophy from the very
beginning. The pre-Socratic philosophers, for instance, assumed that they could
identify some primitive element, or elements, of which the world was built. The
speculative metaphysical investigation of nature evolved into natural history and
into the science of biology and ecology by the nineteenth century. It is telling that in
2001, just fifteen years after the invention of the term biodiversity, a five-volume
Encyclopedia of Biodiversity was published. Moreover, thousands of scientific
articles, as counted by Julia Koricheva and Helena Siipi in their contribution The
Phenomenon of Biodiversity, have been published. Some of these have been
published in newly established journals that include biodiversity in their titles.
Other large-scale projects are on their way to being accomplished, such as the
enlargement of the abovementioned Encyclopedia of Biodiversity to an electronic
version and the enterprise to make an inventory of all species on Earth.4 As I see it,
without the long preceding history and the established tradition of natural history,
broadly understood, nothing like this may have happened, at least not so quickly.
Biodiversity has become a buzzword, that is, a currently fashionable expression or a
catchword. As is the case with buzzwords generally, biodiversity has also been
given innumerable definitions, some of which have grown out of the original context,
decreasing its usability. In the opening chapter Koricheva and Siipi provide a survey
of this use of the focal concept and analyze how the meaning given to it implies
variation in conservation policies.
Given the history outlined above, Sarkars (2002, 132) remark that Biodiversity
must be analyzed in the context of conservation biology becomes incontestable.
What, then, is philosophically fascinating about biodiversity 5 that goes beyond the
burning practical concerns of conservation biology? I think that simply the existence
of this volume offers a better answer than I could ever provide here, but let me think
about it for a moment. This motivating question is in the background of other
questions that I will introduce in the remainder of this chapter. To begin with, if the
task of conservation is to conserve biodiversity (Sarkar 2002, 133), it raises the
A2 Keystone Species
Keystone species are an artificial construct
Mills et al 93- researchers @ American Institue of Biological Sciences (Scott,
Michael E. Soule and Daniel F. Doak, The keystone-species concept in ecology and
conservation, Bioscience, 4/1993,
http://bio.research.ucsc.edu/people/doaklab/publica tions/1993mills_soule_doak.pdf)
We see both technical and philosophical liabilities associated with reliance on
keystone species in a conservation context. (See Landres et al. 1988 for a parallel critique
regarding labeling certain species "indicator species.") The overriding technical difficulty is one of definition.
The
problem of objectively defining which species are keystone makes it likely that
subjectively chosen subsets of species will be so labeled, whereas other species of
similar importance will be ignored. Even if keystone species could readily and reliably be identified for
difficulties await researchers attempting such experiments (see Bender et al. 1984, Carpenter et al. 1985).
a given location at a given time, several philosophical dangers arise. First, the term is burdened with historical
(Gautier-Hion and Michaloud 1989, Jackson and Kaufmann 1987, Levey 1988, Palumbi and Freed 1988). Thus, it is
exceptionally difficult to confidently define a priori which local populations (not to mention species) are keystone
requires large areas; these areas may ensure, in turn, sufficient habitat heterogeneity and space for large numbers
of other species, some of which may have specialized requirements. In sum, both the complexity of ecological
interactions and ignorance of them militates against the application of the keystone-species concept for practical
One major
criticism of the keystone species concept stemmed from the ambiguous nature of
its definition (Mills et al. 1993). This made it hard to identify exactly which species
should be designated as having a keystone role in a community (Mills et al. 1993 ).
According to Power et al. (1996), among the obstacles to such a determination are: cost. It is an expensive
and detailed task to gather sufficient data to determine if a species plays a
keystone role; controls. It is difficult to measure data from in situ experiments because
of the many variables, known and unknown, in the field ; time. Long-term studies are required
to determine patterns in species behavior; ethical constraints. Certain tests to determine the extent
of its influence on an ecosystem, e.g., removing a species from its environment,
may eliminate the very species or habitat that conservation biologists are trying to
save; and context dependency. A species may play a keystone role in some parts of its
range, at specific times of the year, or under certain conditi ons. Therefore, the determination
Like any metaphorical concept of this magnitude, this one is not without its shortcomings.
of a species as keystone varies both temporally and spatially, and a strong understanding of the context specific
interactions is required.
- political correspondant for The Guardian (Juliette, International failure to meet target to reduce
biodiversity decline, The Guardian, 4/29/14, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/apr/29/internationalfailure-biodiversity-decline)
The world has failed to meet the target set by international leaders to reduce the
rate of biodiversity loss by this year, experts will announce next month. Instead, a coalition of
40 conservation organisations claims there have been "alarming biodiversity
declines", and that pressures on the natural world from development, over-use and
pollution have risen since the ambition was set in the 2002 Convention on Biological
Diversity. The first formal assessment of the target, published today in the journal Science, will be the basis of a
formal declaration by the CBD in Nairobi on 10 May, at which governments will be pressed to take the issues as
animal populations by 30%, the area of mangroves and sea grasses by 20% and the coverage of living corals by
40%," said Professor Joseph Alcamo, chief scientist of the United Nations Environment Programme, one of the
contributing organisations. "These losses are clearly unsustainable, since biodiversity makes a key contribution to
human well-being
The study says continuing heavy reliance on the protected areas strategy has five key
technical and practical limitations. The first of these limitations is that "protected
areas only ameliorate certain human threats." "Biodiversity loss is triggered by a
host of human stressors including habitat loss, overexploitation, climate change,
pollution and invasive species," according to the study. "Yet protected areas are useful primarily against
overexploitation and habitat loss. Since the remaining stressors are just as deleterious, biodiversity can be expected
to continue declining as it has done until now. The study shows that approximately 83% of protected areas on the
sea and 95% of protected areas on land are located in areas with continuing high impact from multiple human
stressors." This conclusion by the scientists echoes one of the key criticisms of California's Marine Life Protection
Act (MLPA) Initiative - the "marine protected areas" created by this widely-contested process don't comprehensively
protect the ocean from the main threats to the ocean and marine life in California. These threats include massive
water diversions out of the Bay-Delta Estuary, water pollution, oil spills and drilling, wave and wind energy projects,
military testing, habitat destruction and all other human impacts other than sustainable fishing and gathering.
Ironically, even before the imposition of these largely redundant ocean closures that are now being contested by
coalition of fishing organizations in court, California marine and anadromous fisheries had the strictest recreational
and commercial fishing regulations on the entire planet. MLPA advocates refuse to acknowledge the existence of
one of the largest marine protected areas in the world, the Rockfish Conservation Area, that encompass the entire
Despite strong advocacy for protected areas, budget growth has been slow and it seems unlikely that it will be
possible to raise funding appropriate for effective management as well as for creation of the additional protected
areas as is advocated," according to the report. Again, the assessment echoes the criticism by fishermen and
grassroots environmentalists that there is not sufficient funding for enforcement of new marine protected areas
(MPAs) under the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative. The game wardens refer to these new MPAs as "marine
poaching areas," since they will only spread a force of wardens already unable to effectively monitor existing
reserves even thinner. In fact, Jerry Karnow, the president of the California Fish and Game Wardens Association, has
repeatedly asked the California Fish and Game Commission to not create new marine protected areas unless
debt (Brooks et al. 1999; Lindborg & Eriksson 2004; Helm et al. 2006), but others not (Adriaens et al. 2006).
Further,
Worries about declining biodiversity have become popular lately . On the first Earth Day,
participants were concerned about saving a few particularly charismatic species such as the bald eagle and the
peregrine falcon. But even then some foresaw a coming holocaust. As Sen. Gaylord Nelson wrote in Look, "Dr. S.
Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80
percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct." Writing just five years after the first Earth Day, Paul
Ehrlich and his biologist wife, Anne Ehrlich, predicted that "since more than nine-tenths of the original tropical
rainforests will be removed in most areas within the next 30 years or so, it is expected that half of the organisms in
an ecologist with the World Conservation Union, a leading international conservation organization whose members
are non-governmental organizations, international agencies, and national conservation agencies. Edwards notes
and the ensuing loss of habitat. According to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, what
drives most tropical deforestation is not commercial logging, but "poor farmers who have no other option for
feeding their families than slashing and burning a patch of forest." By contrast, countries that practice high yield,
chemically assisted agriculture have expanding forests. In 1920, U.S. forests covered 732 million acres. Today they
cover 737 million acres, even though the number of Americans grew from 106 million in 1920 to 272 million now.
Forests in Europe expanded even more dramatically, from 361 million acres to 482 million acres between 1950 and
Despite continuing deforestation in tropical countries, Roger Sedjo, a senior fellow at the think
tank Resources for the Future, notes that "76 percent of the tropical rain forest zone is still
covered with forest." Which is quite a far cry from being nine-tenths gone. More good news: In its State of
the World's Forests 1999, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization documents that
while forests in developing countries were reduced b y 9.1 percent between 1980 and 1995,
the global rate of deforestation is now slowing.
1990.
requirements for living. This means the resulting extinctions have happened much
faster than is predicted by our spindle-shaped model. Just as happened with the
decline in dinosaur Families 65 million years ago, so now, Families of large mammals
are becoming extinct at a very fast rate. This is instead of the slowly protracted fall
in their diversity which was shown by our curve of changing mammal Families in
figure 5.5.
Extinction Good
Mass extinctions are good the system survives while
simplifying the ecosystem
Scully 2002
(Malcolm, Editor at Large of the Chronicle, The Chronicle of Higher Education, July
5, http://chronicle.com/article/In-the-Long-Run-or-Maybe/10663/
nature is a self-organized system that,
when disrupted, will correct itself. One way it does so, he writes, is through
extinction. Species vanish, but the system survives . Citing Per Bak, a physicist now at the
His analyses of earlier extinctions lead him to conclude that
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London, who first described self-organized systems in 1987,
Boulter says that the best way to understand such systems is to envision a sand pile to which a steady stream of
grains is added. The stream creates a cone that grows larger and steeper, and at some point collapses in an
The same trend of long-drawn-out survival of the final relicts has been further
considered by Bob Mays group at Oxford, particularly Sean Nee. The Oxford group
are vociferous wailers of gloom and doom: Extinction episodes, such as the
anthropogenic one currently under way, result in a pruned tree of life. But they go
on to argue that the vast majority of groups survive this pruning, so that evolution
goes on, albeit along a different path if the environment is changed. Indeed, the
fossil record has taught us to expect a vigorous evolutionary response when the
ecosystem changes significantly. This kind of research is more evidence to support
the idea that evolution thrives on culling. The planet did really well from the Big
Five mass-extinction events. The victims demise enabled new environments to
develop and more diversification took place in other groups of animals and plants.
Nature was the richer for it. In just the same way the planet can take advantage
from the abuse we are giving it. The harder the abuse, the greater the change to
the environment. But it also follows that it brings forward the extinctions of a whole
selection of vulnerable organisms.
on this planet
continues despite internal and external setbacks, because it is the system that recovers at the expense of some of its
former parts. For example, the end of the dinosaurs enabled mammals to diversify. Otherwise if the exponential
rise were to reach infinity, there would not be space or food to sustain life. It would come to a stop. Extinctions are
necessary to retain life on this planet.
orchids because they add diversity, and that added diversity makes the biological world more stable.
quickly because the tolerant species ultimately drive the recovery process and compensate for the temporary loss
combinatorial 'microcosm' experiments have found5, 6 and what theoretical models of biodiversity have claimed4.
Pfisterer and Schmid's findings3 appear to support those who claim that diversity does not lead to stability. But
there's a twist, and those on each side of the debate run the risk of having their own pet theories turned against
them. Pfisterer and Schmid suggest that the observed inverse association between diversity and stability is due to a
theoretical mechanism known as niche complementarity. This mechanism, however, is the very same as that touted
as the chief cause of the positive biodiversityproductivity relationships found in other combinatorial biodiversity
experiments, such as those at Cedar Creek7 and those run by the BIODEPTH consortium8. The central idea of niche
complementarity is that a community of species whose niches complement one another is more efficient in its use
of resources than an equivalent set of monocultures. For example, a uniform mixture of early- and late-season
plants and shallow- and deep-rooting plants that are spread over 4 m2 will yield more biomass than combined 1-m2
monocultures of each species7, 9. So niche complementarity can explain why higher diversity tends to lead to
higher productivity, and has also been adopted by those in the 'diversity leads to stability' camp because one would
expect that more efficient communities would fare better in the face of stress. Those on the other side, however,
productive species10, 11. In other words, we can't read too much into experiments in which higher diversity
leads to greater productivity. What Pfisterer and Schmid suggest is that complementarity among
species in a diverse plot could be its downfall when faced with perturbation . Niche
complementarity is disrupted and so the whole community suffers. But this is not a
problem for less diverse plots. So those in the 'diversity begets stability' camp risk being hoist on the
petard of their own theory of niche complementarity. Meanwhile, although Pfisterer and Schmid's findings support
the idea that diversity does not lead to stability, the authors reject a large role for sampling the theory generally
favoured by the camp that disagrees with the idea that biodiversity leads to stability.
What these scientists are more interested in detecting is where the next
wasted billions in government and foundation grants can be found. The oceans of the
accelerating.
world comprise some 70% of the Earths surface. They are like the lungs of the Earth, absorbing and releasing
carbon dioxide.
They have been doing this for billions of years and a rise in the amount
of CO2 is essentially meaningless. It is well established among researchers that the uptake of
increased amounts of carbon dioxide will make ocean water more acidic as the gas dissolves to create carbonic
acid, said the Science Daily article and, to scare you just a bit more, Ocean chemistry is changing 100 times more
rapidly than in the 650,000 years that preceded the modern industrial era The global warming fraud was based
on the assertion that, as the Earth encountered greater industrialization, the increased use of oil, natural gas, and
The only
problem with that theory is that it was (1) based on phony computer models and
other false interpretations of data, and (2) the latest, perfectly natural climate cycle,
is causing havoc around the world by dumping mountains of snow everywhere
along with breaking cold temperature records faster than new readings can be
taken.
coal as sources of energy, the CO2 released was causing the Earth to warm exponentially.
( Rebecca, Christopher Harley, and Emily Tang, Elevated water temperature and carbon
dioxide concentration increase the growth of a keystone echinoderm, 2009,
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/05 /25/0811143106.full.pdf+html)
Despite the reduction in relative calcified mass with increased [CO2], the overall effect of [ CO2]
on growth
was positive. The reasons for the observed increase in growth with elevated [CO2] are somewhat unclear. The
ratio of dry soft tissue mass to water mass remained unchanged by temperature or
[CO2], suggesting that the change in relative calcified mass must have been caused at least in part by an
increase in the rate of wet soft tissue growth. Because we could not measure change in calcified mass over the
course of the experiment, it is unclear whether the rate of calcified tissue growth simply remained the same as that
of sea stars reared at control [CO2] (thereby failing to keep pace with the increased soft tissue growth) or declined
compared to that of control [CO2] sea stars. Experiments specifically testing sea star calcification rates under
control and high [CO2] conditions will be necessary to answer this question. Although the unchanged ratio of dry
soft tissue mass to water mass demonstrates that the greater growth of sea stars reared at high [CO2] was
primarily because of increased wet soft tissue growth, it does not explain the mechanism behind this increase. The
nonsignificant trend of increased feeding with increased [CO2] suggests that although feeding rate may be partially
It is
possible that elevated [CO2] increases resource use efficiency; for example, the
slightly lower pH of high-CO2 seawater could aid in the digestion of prey tissue,
making feeding less energetically costly. Alternatively, low level stressors such as
low doses of toxins can elicit positive responses such as increased growth in plants,
invertebrates, and vertebrates, a phenomenon referred to as hormesis (2 6); the stress
responsible for the increase in growth rate, there are likely additional factors contributing to this change.
of reduced pH or carbonate availability may elicit a similar response in sea stars. Identification of the precise
mechanism driving the increase in wet soft tissue growth with elevated [CO2] will require further, more
physiologically based experiments
Bioprospecting DA
1NC
Unique marine expansion of bioprospecting coming now
Biodiversity collapse eliminates necessary profit motive
Sabal 7
Megan Sabal (M.A. Miami Ohio in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The Future of
Marine Resources as Pharmaceutical Products May 20, 2007
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?
q=cache:CMOhsrVoJxIJ:jrscience.wcp.miamioh.edu/fieldcourses07/PapersMarineEcol
ogyArticles/TheFutureofMarineResource.html+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client
=firefox-a
Coral Reefs have long been considered the rainforests of the oceans. This is a
reference to the extensive biodiversity which is found in both of these unique
ecosystems. The high level of primary productivity, due largely in part to the
intense solar radiation in the tropics, accounts for the variety of organisms found in
these areas. Although the high biodiversity in rainforests is generally known, the
general public is unaware of the extensive plethora of organisms on coral reefs. Part
of this is because humans are land-dwelling organisms and tend to invest more time
and energy into terrestrial research and conservation methods. This is unfortunate
as marine organisms have greater pylogenetic diversity than terrestrial organisms
whose unique characteristics are lost through this selective research. Some classes
of organisms found only in marine environments are corals, tunicates, mollusks,
bryozoans, sponges and echinoderms (Bruckner). A recent value of biodiversity has
been the resources for chemicals which could be utilized in pharmaceutical
products. With the great biodiversity and unique adaptations of marine organisms,
The prospect of finding a new drug in the sea, especially among coral reef species,
may be 300 to 400 times more likely than isolating one from a terrestrial
ecosystem (Bruckner). Despite the great potential, marine bioprospecting has
lagged behind terrestrial efforts because harvesting these compounds is more
difficult, more dangerous and more expensive (Tangley). In order to take advantage
of the potential medicinal benefits to be found in marine organisms, cooperation
among researchers, companies and indigenous people must be obtained. Further
technological advancements in harvesting methods which are more cost-effective
and ecologically sustainable must also be developed (Allison). Although the
potential is immense, there are various obstacles which researchers need to
overcome in order to utilize these pharmaceutical benefits. Accounting for the
immense potential for medicinal benefits in marine bioprospecting is due to the
unique adaptations of these organisms themselves. Many of marine organisms are
sessile and live firmly attached to coral reefs and therefore cannot escape
environmental stressors or predation by simply moving to a safer area. Instead they
have evolved defense mechanisms which rely on bioactive compounds to deter
predation, fight disease and prevent overgrowth by competing organisms
(Bruckner). Chemicals with these unique properties have a high potential to yield
medicines which could end up saving lives. One problem with utilizing these
chemicals economically is that they are usually produced in minute amounts and
only under specific stressors. In terrestrial environments many of these chemicalproducing mechanisms are unnecessary for organisms and this is why
bioprospecting in marine environments holds such untapped potential. The search
for pharmaceutical products from coral reef ecosystems has been in existence for
many years, although it has not been widespread. Part of this is due to the
obstacles presented through various harvesting methods as they are typically very
expensive and yield a small amount of the desired chemical. Compounds will enter
the drug market only if a cost-effective source of large-scale supply is available
(Mendola). With this pressure there are a variety of harvesting methods in order to
reach the highest efficiency and output. One method is chemical synthesis which
includes chemically forging the desired chemical compound. In order for this to be
economically feasible this process generally must take less than 30 chemical
reactions (Mendola). Many companies rely on wild harvest, where the costs include
the SCUBA equipment and boat, but an example shows that this process averages
only 2 grams of substance per kilogram of sponge which means that 75 tons of
sponge would need to be harvested yearly! This method is highly unsustainable and
would wreak havoc with coral reef ecosystems over the long term (Mendola).
Mariculture which is also known as aquaculture is controlled marine agriculture.
These have potential for being an ecologically sustainable harvesting method,
although start up costs are high and there is trouble finding suitable areas to start
these sponge farms (Mendola). Ex Situ Culture consists of the cultivation of sponges
outside of the sea in a laboratory setting. This allows for scientists to control the
specific parameters such as water temperature, light, food and nutrients. There
have been some small successes of ex situ culture, but no large-scale production
has yet been achieved (Mendola). Another possibility is developing a sponge cell
culture, but this has not been achieved yet due to complexities with many
associated organisms such as bacteria, algae and fungi which live in close proximity
with sponges and make up more than 40% of all sponge biomass (Mendola).
Genetic modification holds potential, as the genetic code which codes for the
specific chemical could be transferred into a laboratory-friendly microorganism
which could then turn out the desired compound. Limitations with this method are
that many of the bioactive compounds are not single proteins, but products of
extensive metabolic pathways which are hard to transfer into a different organism
(Mendola). Semi-synthesis is a final method which is comprised of the
biotechnological production of an earlier chemical step and then followed by a
limited number of synthetic chemical reactions in order to obtain the final product.
Of these various harvesting methods mariculture is currently the most feasible,
while ex situ culture holds the greatest potential for future bio-production
(Mendola). Despite the imposing obstacles in harvesting chemicals for medicinal
benefits, there have most certainly been success stories. Algae have been used for
cancer therapy, venom from cone snails for painkillers and chemicals from extracts
of sponges for antiviral drugs (Bruckner). There are various potential
pharmaceuticals, nutritional supplements, enzymes, pesticides, cosmetics and other
commercial products all from marine resources. Over the last decade, Japan has
been the leader in marine biotechnology investing between $900 million and $1
billion each year. The United States has invested much less into these efforts and
even so, U.S. marine biotechnology efforts since 1983 have resulted in more
than 170 U.S. patents, with close to 100 new compounds patented between 1996
and 1999 (Bruckner). These extensive results encourage marine biotechnology to
grow 15-20% during the next 5 years. Most of the funding for this research and
development comes from universities, for-profit companies, government agencies
and conservation groups. Once a drug is identified, it is patented and licensed to
pharmaceutical companies to develop, test and market (Bruckner). Obtaining the
economic benefits from marine resources is a lengthy process, but one with
significant potential which leaders such as Japan and the U.S. are seeking to utilize.
The potential economic profit which could be derived from these pharmaceutical
products is immense and many believe will play a key role in the emerging business
of ecotourism. Locals will then have a motive to protect the fragile ecosystems of
coral reefs. Bruckner states that, If properly regulated, bioprospecting activities
within coral reef environments may fuel viable market-driven incentives to promote
increased stewardship for coral reefs and tools to conserve and sustainably use
coral reef resources. Unfortunately, a large, initial financial investment is needed to
start finding drug possibilities and this is followed by a long lapse of time before the
drug is finally developed and available to consumers (Bruckner). Many local,
indigenous populations do not have this money or time to invest in marine
resources yielding economic products. Outside, affluent nations such as the United
States, arriving in the waters surrounding these local nations and profiting from the
biodiversity present without providing compensation or control of the resources to
the locals (Tangley). This imperialist situation is rampant, but healthy relationships
between outside companies and local communities do exist such as with the
example of SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals. This company is one of the
largest players in bioprospecting world wide and they gather their products in South
Africa and Fiji. In exchange for the permission to gather chemicals from these
countries surrounding areas, SmithKline provides equipment, training and
certification in advanced technical diving to local scientists who can then use them
on their own products. They also provide the means for scholarships for local
students who are developing marine natural products (Tangley). These wealthier
nations have the potential to provide a new economic means and bring new
technology and knowledge to poorer areas. The reason this does not occur
everywhere is that the situation concerning sovereignty over marine resources is
vastly complicated. Marine resources are generally considered common property
resources which indicate that no one stakeholder hold exclusive rights to the area
(Carter). This leads to a vast amount of competition and confusion over marine
resources such as, oil wells, fisheries and the great diversity on coral reefs. There
are vague boundaries which a centralized management has devised. Internal waters
such as bays, estuaries and rivers are under the jurisdiction of the costal nation as
well as the territorial sea which is the open ocean adjacent to the coast. Then
extends an exclusive economic zone where special uses such as mining, fishing and
dumping is allowed only for the coastal nation, but other nations may engage in
non-destructive uses. Finally, waters outside theses designated areas are in the high
seas and open to anyone (Cutter). Definitive boundaries are lacking in marine
environments and there are many discrepancies and violations of these policies.
These also allow for wealthier nations to come and utilize the marine resources
found on coral reefs without consent of the locals (Honey). In 1993 the Convention
on Biological Diversity created an agreement between industrialized and developing
countries to start implementing guidelines over the access to coastal marine
resources (Tangley). The aspects considered include conservation of biodiversity,
sustainability and fair sharing of benefits with the source country (Bruckner). These
are important steps in setting up a system which allows for marine bioprospecting
to be beneficial to all countries involved. Coral reefs are amazing ecosystems that
harbor drastic amounts of unique organisms. Many of these life forms have qualities
which make them excrete bioactive compounds which can be harvested and utilized
in various pharmaceutical products. Coral reefs are currently under many stressors
and are dying across the earth. One possible method for the conservation of these
magnificent ecosystems it through the knowledge of how many life-saving products
could be derived from these areas. More technological advancements with
harvesting methods need to be developed in order to make this economically
profitable while avoiding destruction to the reef itself. Then more international
policies need to be created and enforced between industrialized nations and local
communities so that marine bioprospecting can serve as a positive example of
ecotourism. Coral reefs are brimming with potential medicinal benefits if only a
system can be created soon to preserve these wonderful marine ecosystems.
completely alien to the ATS," says Josh Stevens, of the Antarctic and Southern
Ocean Coalition (ASOC), a group made up of nearly 230 NGOs from 49 countries
that have flagged a trend towards increased commercialisation of science and other
activities in the region. "Bio-prospecting could bring down the whole house of
cards," Stevens told IPS. The region contains many unique species of
"extremophiles", creatures adapted to the extreme conditions there, says the U.N.
University's report, 'The International Regime For Bio-prospecting: Existing Policies
And Emerging Issues For Antarctica'. Biotechnology companies in particular are
scouring the area in hopes of finding organisms that will be the basis for new drugs,
industrial compounds and other commercial applications, it says. Already, some 92
patents referring to Antarctic organisms or to molecules extracted from them have
been filed in the United States, and a further 62 in Europe. Enzymes extracted from
extremophiles in other regions have become multi-million-dollar products in laundry
detergents. Another enzyme is the basis of the 300-million-dollar medical diagnosis
and forensics industry. The market for biotechnology enzymes derived from
extremophiles is forecast to grow 1520 percent a year, growth that is part of a
larger trend, says the report. Annual sales derived from traditional knowledge using
genetic resources are three billion dollars for the cosmetic and personal care
industry, 20 billion dollars for the botanical medicine sector and 75 billion dollars for
the pharmaceutical industry. Sixtytwo per cent of cancer drugs approved by the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are of natural origin or modelled on natural
products, adds the report. For those reasons, companies are buying or purchasing
licences to complete collections of biological materials from various past Antarctic
expeditions.. And because research in the coldest, harshest region on the planet is
extremely expensive, pharmaceutical companies find many scientists and
institutions willing to sign over commercial licensing rights in exchange for funding.
A contract signed in 1995 between the University of Tasmania and Amrad Natural
Products, an Australian company, gives Amrad the right to analyse Antarctic
microbes to see if they could be used to develop new antibiotics or other
pharmaceutical products. European food giant Unilever has patented a protein
taken from bacteria found in Antarctic lake sediments that could stop ice crystals
building up in ice cream. Should that protein become a billion-dollar product, it
would create a nightmare scenario for the treaty system, says Stevens. "There's no
way the ATS could withstand a commercial onslaught."
could come under strain as the major challenge with respect to Antarctica today is
that, while incorporating the distant prospect of resource utilization and immediate
need for preservation on its environment, it should be able to ensure the
continuance of the system of cooperation envisaged in the Treaty without disturbing
its pristine environment
Uniqueness/Brink
Companies want to go into the ocean for bioprospecting but
there are limitations that make its economics key
Nelson 12 RJ Dunlap Marine conservation program intern
Emily rose Drugs from the deep: Ocean bioprospecting University of Miami Journal
http://rjd.miami.edu/conservation/drugs-from-the-deep-ocean-bioprospecting
It is clear that the ocean has enormous medicinal potential. Unfortunately there are
a number of obstacles preventing this potential to be reached in full. One of the
biggest problems is simply the lack of supply. Underwater compounds are more
difficult to reach than those on land. SCUBA and submersibles make it easier to
access these resources, however, oceanographic expeditions are quite expensive.
Also, in order to use these compounds effectively collections need to be done in
very large quantities. Large scale harvests are often deemed ecologically unsound.
Because collection is almost always not an option alternatives such as aquaculture
and chemical synthesis can be used. Aquaculture has been completed successfully,
however it is difficult because little is known about the invertebrates. Chemical
synthesis is thought to be the ideal solution, giving pharmaceutical companies
ultimate control. However, this process is extremely costly, complex, and has a very
low yield. Another complication deals with political boundaries. The most diverse
regions are located in areas of developing countries. These are precisely the areas
that the more developed nations wish to explore. Developing nations are often
nervous about being used, and thus hesitant to allow exploration. National and
international regulations regarding access and extraction of natural resources are
then discussed. This presents difficulty when placing value on a natural resource,
including any value added to the resource through its use as a pharmaceutical and
the value it has initially in the ecosystem.
Bioprospecting Links
Companies are deterred by a lack of certainty about access
the process is prohibitively expensive without assurances of
profitability and biodiversity
RedOrbit 2005
(RedOrbit, International news organization, June 8, 2005 U.N.: Ocean
Bioprospecting Needs Rules
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/154680/un_ocean_bioprospecting_needs_rule
s/ )
But the report said unfettered access could threaten the fragile habitats. And
companies which might find a cure for AIDS or cancer in the depths were
deterred from investing by a lack of clarity about access or ownership. The report
says 32 of the 34 broadest categories of animals from vertebrates like humans to
molluscs or arthropods live in the seas. Up to 1,000 different species had been
found per square meter in some Pacific or Indian Ocean waters. Its very difficult to
quantify how many deep seabed organisms are now used in commercial products,
said Charlotte Salpin, a lead author of the UNU report. But she said, for instance,
French company Sederma or U.S. group California Tan used enzymes from a heatloving deep sea bacteria called thermus thermophilus in suntan creams. So far
very, very few private companies have the funds to carry out research themselves
in the deep sea bed, she said. Every trip to the ocean bed costs about $1 million,
according to a Japanese government agency.\
technologies." But a lack of clarity over legislation could prove a setback for this
burgeoning area of research. Within 200 nautical miles of a country's coastline is
the Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ). In these territorial waters, there are clearly
defined laws about how the sea can be exploited. And if a country has signed up to
the Nagoya Protocol, an update to the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity, they
have an additional responsibility to ensure that any exploitation in their waters is
fair and sustainable. But beyond that boundary are the high seas: the stretch of
international ocean that nobody owns. And this area is governed by the United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This regulates activities such as mineral
exploitation, but it doesn't cover so-called ocean bioprospecting. The hoff The deep
sea is especially rich in life - this crab, nicknamed 'The Hoff', was found more than
2,000m down Dr Day explains: "In open waters, this is a very grey and murky area
as far as I'm concerned. "At present, as far as I'm aware, there are very few laws
that would cover exploitation of that material. "The Law of the Sea focuses on what
is on the ocean floor or beneath it, and it also specifies non-mobile organisms - and
there doesn't seem to be definitive legislation with regards to what is in the water
column." This is a concern, because this Wild West of the seas is home to an
extraordinary range of creatures and plants. Simply to survive, they have to adapt
to extremes of temperature, pressure and darkness - and it's this hardiness that
makes them so attractive to scientists. Coral reef Without clear legislation fragile
ecosystems could be damaged The worry is that, without regulation, fragile habitats
could be damaged beyond repair. Environmental damage would be limited, says the
co-director of the Seabiotech consortium Prof Linda Harvey from the University of
Strathclyde, because most research involves collecting relatively small samples to
analyse back at the lab. But she believes the dearth of clear rules could cause other
problems. "It's particularly important for companies to have legal clarity when
they're working in open waters because they're making a huge investment," she
explains. "It will cost money to develop the drug and put it through clinical trials and
if they don't have legal certainty they will potentially lose the right to produce that
drug and it's not acceptable to them. "And in my opinion that would put companies
off investing in taking samples from the deep-sea environment." In Belgium,
scientists, UN representatives and conservationists have been meeting to discuss
the problem. Prof Marcel Jaspars, from the University of Aberdeen, runs Pharmasea another EU-funded consortium carrying out research in this area. He says that a
new mechanism is needed to make sure any profits from the deep sea are shared.
"If you were to discover anything, any royalties would lie in the future," he explains.
"The question is how to police that 20 years hence?
One of the greatest threats to taking advantage of the seas gene potential is loss
of biodiversity through our alteration and destruction of ecosystems. 48.6% of the
FDA approved drugs over the past 25 years have a natural product in their history,
[29] but there is concern because 30 to 50% of the worlds species face extinction
by mid-century (Ibid 2004) with extinctions occurring at dozens per day [30]. A
similar bounty lies within the ocean. We must not allow destruction to befall the
marine world. Threats such as overfishing, dumping of nuclear and other wastes,
and destruction of coastal ecosystems imperil the biodiversity of the oceans and
the utilization of potential resources. Marine fisheries collapse reached 65% by
2003, and global collapse of all commercially exploited fish populations is expected
by 2048 if we do not act to curb the plunder [31]. Tropical reefs shelter as many as
one third of all marine species [32] but between a third and two thirds of the coral
reefs are damaged or dying, causing extinction of as many as a third of reef species
[33]. The coral reefs are unlikely to survive the 21st century if nothing is done to
prevent increasing ocean temperatures, acidification, pollution, sedimentation and
direct impact from over fishing (12th International Coral Reef Symposium 2012)
[34]. It is vital that we act at the level of governmental and international policy to
prevent irreparable damage to the last frontier even before we have the technology
to benefit from the secrets of the deep.
the companies in which they invest do not adequately manage their own BES risks .
Robeco, the Dutch asset manager, undertakes a broad programme of engagement on environmental and social
management
within the pharmaceutical industry as a potential area of risk a nd commissioned KPMG
issues that are deemed to pose a risk to their investments. In 2010. Robeco identified S3LS
Sustainability and the Natural Value Initiative to examine how the pharmaceutical industry is addressing its BES
risks. We evaluated ten companies using the Ecosystem Services Benchmark, which was developed by the Natural
Value Initiative in conjunction with a range of BES experts and stakeholders and adapted for application to this
sector. All companies reviewed have started to consider the business implications of declining BES. However, none
on protected areas or water consumption and on ensuring adequate controls over the sourcing of active ingredients
already doing this have identified a number of risks that they are now taking steps to manage.
services: Risk and Opportunity analysis within the pharmaceutical industry, May
2011, Natural Value Initiative, pg. 10 //nz)
The most obvious link between the pharmaceutical industry and BES is with the
sourcing of active ingredients from nature". It is estimated that only a fraction of the
53,000 species used medicinally worldwide have been used by the pharmaceutical
industry in drug discovery'2. Given current species extinction rates, the
pharmaceutical industry may well be missing out on new drugs. One estimate
suggests the Earth is potentially losing one major drug every two years13. However,
trends in sourcing of active ingredients from nature have changed over time,
suggesting that the reliance of the industry may be less than it was historically.
Though initially pharmaceutical companies ran extensive natural product discovery,
or "bioprospecting" programmes, many have shut them down in recent years. This
move away from natural product-based research and development is due to
concerns about long discovery times compared to synthetic molecules, as well as
challenging sourcing logistics. Nonetheless, Pharmaceutical Insight recently
identified the search for medically active compounds either by using indigenous
knowledge of species or by screening compounds as a key industry trend14,
indications are that bioprospecting is expected to grow to a US$ 500 million industry
by 2050,5. Active ingredients from natural products cannot always be replicated by
modern chemistry. They can also act as pathfinders to new modes of clinical action.
For example, the compound paclitaxel (found in Taxus spp. and source of the anticancer drug, Taxol) was described as the kind of molecule that no chemist would
ever sit down and think of making.
Polasky and Solow (1995) used a similar model to value a collection of species. If the probability of success on any
given trial is p and the revenue upon success is R, then the expected value of a collection of N species is V (N ) =
R[1 (1 p)N ], which is the same as by Simpson, Sedjo and Reid (1996) when c = 0. Polasky and Solow (1995)
considered two variants of the simple model to allow for imperfect substitutes among species that generate success
for the same product, and dependence in probabilities of success across species that relate to genetic similarity.
Both extensions are motivated by the experience of bioprospecting. When taxol was found in the bark of the Pacific
yew tree, there was an intensified search of related species. It was found that the needles of the European yew tree
could be used to get taxotare, an imperfect substitute for taxol. With imperfect substitutes, the marginal value of
species need not fall as fast as indicated by Simpson, Sedjo and Reid (1996). On the other hand, accounting for
species interrelationships tends to reduce the marginal value of species. 1528 S. Polasky et al. Rausser and Small
(2000) challenge the empirical conclusions of low value from bioprospecting found in Simpson, Sedjo and Reid
(1996). The existence of prior in- formation makes it unlikely that all species will have the same probability of
success in yielding a valuable product.
value of only $20.63 for the same hectare in Simpson, Sedjo and Reid (1996). This result
suggests that the benefits of protecting biodiversity hotspots for future biological
prospecting may indeed outweigh the costs.
also introduce light and different noise patterns into the fragile deep sea
environment and may discharge marine pollutants and alien biological material into
the previously pristine environment of the deep seabed.33 The negative impact of
frequent research expeditions on particular deep seabed sites and the potential for
conflicting or incompatible research activities which duplicate adverse effects on
fragile deep sea sites has also been noted by scientists and other commentators.34
The absence of compulsory environmental protection measures such as
environmental baseline data collection, ongoing environmental impact assessment
of sampling sites and impact reference zones could result in
A2 No Bioprospecting - Regulations
Bioprospecting has little regulatory barriers to contracts now
Muradian and Rival 13 (Roldan and Laura, Center for International
Development Issues, Radboud University Nijmegen, Department of International
Development, University of Oxford, Governing the Provision of Ecosystem
Services, Springer, pg. 92 //nz)
Note- Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
Well-defined property rights are generally held as a precondition for reducing
uncertainty in investment decisions (Pindyck 1988; Caballero 1991; Dixit and
Pindyck 1994; Bell and Campa 1997). This argument has been put forward also for
bioprospecting, leading to the idea of the need for clear regulatory frameworks
(Bhatti 2003; Larson-Guerra et al. 2004) to facilitate negotiation of new projects
(Tobin 2002). Prior to the CBD, access to GR was often gained without consent of GR
holders, leading to situations known as biopiracy. Demanders used to identify and
locate GR that appeared valuable for their aims. Bioprospecting projects were
conducted largely without formal contracts, but instead demanders of GR would
sometimes pay a small amount of money up-front to the provider of GR, as a
compensation only for the labour time local people who helped to locate the GR
being sought. However, under the CBD, countries have the right to vest the
property rights over GR located in their territory and grant these rights to the state
or alternatively on individual or collective owners of the land where the GR can be
found (CBD, Article 15). As a result, the CBD has strengthened GR providers' claims
on benefit sharing (e.g. ten Kate and Laird 1999; Tobin 2002).*
Marine bioprospecting the search for novel compounds from natural sources in the
marine environment has increased rapidly in recent years. Much of the increase in
activity may be attributed to technological advances in exploring the ocean and the
genetic diversity it contains. Much of the marine biome remains under-investigated
and the prospect for new and unique findings is high, particularly in the microbial
realm1 . It can therefore be expected that the rate of discovery will continue to
increase as technology develops. The problem of how to conserve and sustainably
use marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) is one of
the most controversial topics now under discussion in international fora. There are
no clear international rules in place specifically addressing bioprospecting in these
areas. Furthermore, since very few States have the necessary technological and
intellectual know-how to carry out bioprospecting, the discussion has also focused
on the need for an access and benefit-sharing regime to improve equitable use of
high seas resources. From the perspective of the biotechnology industry, there are
concerns that the current uncertain and unpredictable legal and regulatory
framework may hamper the flow of ideas and products from the marine biome and
inhibit future research, development and commercialisation of novel compounds to
treat disease.
Link - AUVs
New technological developments like AUVs increase the likely
hood of bioprospecting
Global ocean commission 13 an international organization working towards
reversing degradation
Bioprospecting and marine genetic resources in the high seas Policy Options Paper
# 4: http://www.globaloceancommission.org/wp-content/uploads/GOC-paper04bioprospecting.pdf
The marine realm contains a very rich variety of organisms, many of which remain
undescribed. Because of their high biological diversity, marine ecosystems are
particularly suited for bioprospecting, a process that aims to identify and isolate
natural compounds from genetic material. Today, about 18,000 natural products
have been reported from marine organisms belonging to about 4,800 named
species. The number of natural products from marine species is growing at a rate of
4% per year2 . The increase in the rate of discoveries is largely the result of
technological advances in exploring the ocean and the genetic diversity it contains.
Advances in technologies for observing and sampling the deep ocean, such as
submersibles and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), have opened up previously
unexplored areas to scientific research. Coordinated scientific efforts such as the
Census of Marine Life3 have also given added impetus to scientific research,
resulting in many new and exciting discoveries. At the same time, developments in
molecular biology, including high throughput genome sequencing, metagenomics
and bioinformatics, have increased our capacity to investigate and make use of
marine genetic material.
Link - Plankton
An increase in plankton increases the use of bioprospecting
Abida et al 13 author and scientist on phytoplankton
Heni, Sandrine Ruchaud, Laurent Rios, Anne Humeau, Ian Probert, Colomban De
Vargas, Stphane Bach, and Chris Bowler, Bioprospecting Marine Plankton
Published online Nov 14,http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3853748/
About 3.5 billion years ago the ocean was probably the birthplace of life, and today
marine microbes number in the millions in every liter of seawater. They represent
more than 95% of marine biomass and are present in many different environments,
e.g., in the water column, in ocean sediments, or associated with other organisms.
Many of them drift with the currents together with other microscopic organisms
such as zooplankton and are collectively referred to as plankton, from the Greek
word planktos meaning drifter. Planktonic organisms are found in all marine
environments, including extreme conditions, and are extremely diverse in
taxonomic groups (with representatives from all kingdoms of life), trophic groups
and sizes (Table 1). Representatives include viruses, bacteria, the photosynthetic
phytoplankton, and a wide range of larger zooplankton that graze on the smaller
organisms. The abundance of different plankton varies according to size, with
viruses present typically at up to 10 billion particles/L, bacteria at up to one billion
cells/L, phytoplankton at up to 10 million cells/L, and zooplankton at up to 1000
organisms/L. Marine planktonic ecosystems are highly dynamic environments
subject to a wide range of external forces. Some organisms, referred to as
holoplankton, are constitutively planktonic whereas others (known as meroplankton)
are part of this community only during a specific phase of their life cycle, usually the
larval stage. It is important not to overlook these latter organisms in bioprospecting
because they may represent novel sources of molecules (e.g., used in defense
mechanisms) that are not found in their mature counterparts. Such metabolites
have been reported in larvae from Luffariella variabilis [13], asteroid eggs [14],
ascidian larvae [15], polychaetes [16], and bryozoan larvae [17], none of which
were detected in their maturenon-planktoni
Impacts
Impact ATS
ATS strong now key to preventing armed conflict
Michael Richardson (former Asia Editor of The International Herald Tribune, is a
visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in
Singapore) January 2009 Nations here put discord on ice
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/opinion/editorial/general/nations-here-putdiscord-on-ice/1399665.aspx?storypage=0
!The Dome A research is part of wider cooperation that links the 46 member nations
of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty and associated accords. The signatories include
developed and developing economies, accounting for about 80 per cent of the
world's population. They are parties to a treaty system designed to ensure that the
wars which have disfigured other continents do not occur in Antarctica, that the
environment is protected, and that scientific research and collaboration have
priority. Signatories undertake to use Antarctica for peaceful purposes only. Military
operations, nuclear explosive tests and the disposal of radioactive waste are not
permitted. All commercial mining is banned. !Of course, many of the things that
fuel human greed and armed conflict elsewhere are not present or readily
exploitable in Antarctica. There are no indigenous inhabitants, arable land or
forests. Only 2 per cent of Antarctica's 14 million square kilometres is ice-free and
even that is ill-suited for human settlement. The onshore population of international
scientists swells to over 4000 in summer, but dwindles to about 1000 in winter. !
The Antarctic Treaty is not exclusive. It allows any member of the United Nations to
join. Of the 46 countries that have done so, 28 are consultative parties with the
right to make collective decisions about management of the continent. Consultative
status is open to any country that can show its commitment to Antarctica by
conducting significant research there. In their regular meetings, consultative parties
make decisions by consensus, not by voting. !This is not, by any means, a perfect
system of administration. Unregulated fishing and environmental damage still occur.
But generally, human impacts are far more effectively controlled in and around
Antarctica than on other continents. Perhaps the local circumstances that make this
kind of multi-national governance possible are unique. However, it certainly shows
what enlightened leadership can do when nation-states put their differences aside
and work together for the common good. !What could upset the Antarctic treaty
system? Intrusion of the same kinds of territorial and resource rivalries that bedevil
relations among people and countries on other continents. Seven of the consultative
parties Australia, Argentina, Britain, Norway, France, New Zealand and Chile have
made territorial claims to around 75 per cent of the continent. Some of the claims
overlap. Australia alone asserts sovereignty over 42 per cent of Antarctica. !The
treaty does not recognise or dispute territorial claims and no new ones can be
asserted while it is in force. Oil, gas and minerals are known to exist in Antarctica
and beneath its continental shelf. If global demand for them were to become acute
and technology was available to exploit them, the treaty system might be
challenged. But that seems unlikely for many years.
about 4,000 researchers worked on the continent in the 2005-6 summer peak, with groups of more than 200 from Russia, Argentina, Chile,
Australia and the United Kingdom, which operate primarily along the coasts. "Because of the remoteness of the area, any country that's really
capable of a major effort in Antarctica is probably a signatory or at least accedes to it," said Mahlon Kennicutt, a professor of oceanography at
Texas A&M University and the U.S. representative to the body that coordinates research in Antarctica, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic
Research. Any government that wanted to participate could as long as they can adhere to the treaty's basic precepts. To date, 48 have become
signatories with major research-conducting nations comprising the 28 Consultative Parties. With funding of about $300 million, the National
Science Foundation carries out U.S. policy that extends from the Antarctic Treaty. The NSF maintains the year-round U.S. facilities at the
coastal McMurdo and Palmer stations and the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station, as first mandated by President Nixon in the 1970s and
President Reagan in 1982. In the absence of a military presence, the NSF and Department of Justice enforce the U.S. law in the continent,
1978's Antarctic Conservation Act, which imposes fines or jail time for anyone disrupting the Antarctic ecosystem. With no mechanism for
enforcement built into the treaty, order is maintained by peer pressure and laws passed by individual member nations, representing two-thirds
of the worlds population, to protect Antarctic interests. Working by unanimous consent, the Antarctic Treaty System has spawned a series of
resolutions, regarding plants and animals in 1964, seals in 1972, and marine life in 1980. While discussing a crisis over mining issues in
Madrid in 1991, the group drafted its most comprehensive framework, the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, which
comprehensively limited human interaction with the continent, including a ban on any activities related to mining not for scientific research.
The United States updated its Antarctic policy in 1996 for the first time in two decades, incorporating the recommendations from the Madrid
Protocol. Donald Rothwell, a professor of international law at Australian National University, said Antarctic policy develops slowly in the
absence of crises, such as the mining concerns that led to the creation of the Madrid Protocol. "The legal issues have been fairly well
identified. What we need is political will on the part of the Antarctic Treaty Parties," Rothwell said. Evan Bloom, a deputy director for polar
affairs at the U.S. Department of State and head of the U.S. delegation to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, said the uncertain
environmental impact of growing tourism could be a major point of discussion at the April 2007 Consultative Parties meeting. Colin
Summerhayes, the executive director of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, said illegal fishing poses the largest risk to the treaty,
but noted that bioprospecting, the search for species whose biology could be exploited for medicinal or other commercial applications, could
become an issue. "It's like an Amazon rainforest under the sea: It's very diverse. So the potential exists for unique chemical compounds,"
Summerhayes said. Rothwell said bioprospecting falls in a legal grey area, because it is a combination of scientific research promoted by the
treaty and the mining that it prohibits. Should Antarctic species become valuable, Rothwell added, the issue could unravel the treaty, whether
by infringement or the reestablishment of claims. Though the United States continues to disregard claims on Antarctica and reserves the right
to lay claims of its own, the State Department doubts any would be made while the treaty was intact. "I don't think there's any thinking at all,
and there hasn't been for decades, about doing that, because there's no need," said Bloom. Bloom said the treaty remains one of the most
successful in promoting international cooperation.
difficult times, such as meeting recalled by Woolcott (4) between Russian and US
ambassadors in which agreement was reached on vital tactics and procedures
despite personal insults. Woolcott observed that at Cold War's height, Antarctica
was main area of effective SovietUS cooperation.] And I have my own memory of
receiving at Government House on 2 June 1982 delegations from Argentina and the
United Kingdom who had been working together at a meeting of an Antarctic Treaty
organisation just two months after [the start of] a war between the two countries.
The Antarctic Treaty System has also been [adopted] as a model in other
fields The principles upon which the 1967 Outer Space Treaty was based were in
essence identical with the philosophy of the Antarctic Treaty System. The other
major area of human endeavour in Antarctica is the doing of science. Originally
this was seen as being primarily concerned with discovering, describing and
understanding the properties of the continent and the region below, above and
around it. And that still remains a major function of Antarctic science. But what has
changed is that much of the science which is being done is now understood to have
far wider ramifications so that Antarctic science has now become truly global
science.
Impact - Bioweapons
Bioweapon terror in the future because of bio-break throughs
The Hindu October 23, 2001
http://www.hindu.com/2001/10/23/stories/13230291.htm
The biotechnology holds the promise of a great future but like any other
technological breakthrough, it is a double-edged sword. Biotechnology could be
panacea for eliminating hunger and disease from the globe but the same
biotechnology tools can be used in a deadly manner against the [hu]mankind.
Modern technologies that add efficiency, power and wonder to our lives inevitably
deliver the same benefits to evildoers. According to Bill Joy, the chief scientist of
Sun Microsystems, "the tragedy of September 11 was nothing like what might be
possible with biological weaponry." In his forthcoming book titled Why the Future
Doesn't Need Us, Joy has predicted that the coming age of biotech will undoubtedly
make programmable bacteria and viruses more accessible to doctors, business
and bio-terrorists. "The things which we are worrisome about haven't happened
yet." And having in mind all these, Harvard biologists, Matthew Meselson and
Leading, have suggested a convention making any individual involved in the
production of biological weapons liable as an international criminal, prosecutable
anywhere, as is already the case for pirates and airplane hijackers. This proposal
would permit countries to research and plan defensive work against biological
warfare agents.
Extinction
John Steinbrunner, Senior Fellow at Brookings, 1998, Foreign Policy Winter
1998, Pg. 85
That deceptively simple observation has immense implications. The use of a
manufactured weapon is a singular event. Most of the damage occurs immediately.
The aftereffects, whatever they may be, decay rapidly over time and distance in a
reasonably predictable manner. Even before a nuclear warhead is detonated, for
instance, it is possible to estimate the extent of the subsequent damage and the
likely level of radioactive fallout. Such predictability is an essential component for
tactical military planning. The use of a pathogen, by contrast, is an extended
process whose scope and timing cannot be precisely controlled. For most potential
biological agents, the predominant drawback is that they would not act swiftly or
decisively enough to be an effective weapon But for a few pathogens--ones most
likely to have a decisive effect and therefore the ones most likely to be
contemplated for deliberately hostile use-the risk runs in the other direction. A
lethal pathogen that could efficiently spread from one victim to another would be
capable of initiating an intensifying cascade of disease that might ultimately
threaten the entire world population. The 1918 influenza epidemic demonstrated
the potential for a global contagion of this sort but not necessarily its outer limit.
Bio-prospecting = Bioweapons
This causes creation of lethal bioweapons
Edward Hammond (Director of the US Office of the Sunshine Project) April 2002
Making Biosafety and Bioweapons Security Work Together
http://www.ukabc.org/cop6_eco9.pdf
The last decade has witnessed dramatic and rapid changes in bioscience that are
easing the development of biological weapons. Genetic engineering can be used to
make organisms more lethal, resistant to antibiotics or vaccines, easier to handle,
harder to detect, or more stable in the environment. A recent Australian experiment
with mousepox created an extremely lethal genetic engineered virus when
researchers added a gene believed to be harmless. As early as 1986, US
researchers inserted a deadly anthrax gene into a harmless stomach bacteria. US
Navy scientists are taking natural microorganisms that degrade plastics, rubber,
metals and other materials and using genetic engineering to make powerful
superbugs. One can destroy plastic aircraft coatings in 72 hours. Last year, British
researchers pleaded guilty to charges that they improperly handled a genetically
engineered hybrid of the viruses causing hepatitis C and dengue fever. The German
Army works with tularemia bacteria genetically engineered to be resistant to
antibiotics. The US, following Russian research, recently announced plans to
genetically engineer anthrax to attempt to create GE varieties that can evade
existing vaccines. Science fiction? Unfortunately not. The examples are real.
Biosafety and biological security both relate to genetic engineering and the release
of living organisms into the environment. Both biosafety regulators and bioweapons
control specialists are concerned about examples like those above, and share a
concern to prevent harm from these GMOs. The future threat of biological warfare
agents is directly linked to regulation of genetic engineering.
(Michael,
Cheryl Loeb, Robert Armstrong, and Helen Purkitt, Good Bugs, Bad Bugs:A Modern
Approach for Detecting Offensive Biological Weapons Research, Center for
Technology and National Security Policy National Defense University,
experts writing for the Center for Technology and National Security Policy National Defense University
drug design, synthetic biology, or genetic engineering of viruses), 42 National Research Council, Biotechnology
Research in an Age of Terrorism (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2004), also known as the Fink
Report, after Dr. Gerald Fink, who chaired the committee that produced it. 24 Understanding and manipulation of
biological systems (e.g., RNA interference, computational biology and bioinformatics, systems biology, and genomic
medicine), and Production, delivery, and packaging (biopharming, mirofluidics and mircrofabrication,
bionanotechnology, mircroencapsulation technology, aerosol technology, and gene therapy technology).43
a level approaching that found in D. radiodurans. For example, based on its radiation resistance profile, background
radiation, and environmental oxygen free-radical levels, it is conservatively estimated that desiccated D.
radiodurans could survive without loss in viability in excess of 10,000 years. It is noteworthy that members of the
Deinococcus family have been isolated from an area of the Antarctic Dry Valleys where there is no evidence for
liquid water over the last 2 million years. Further, with its survival extending beyond 2,000,000 radsP a D.
radiodurans BW warhead would also likely survive in-flight sterilization attempts by atomic blast, or by conventional
decontamination efforts following environmental dissemination. The characteris tics of D. radiodurans that have
justified its development for biotechnology1 are the same as those that make it a su.itable candidate for the
development as a potentially devastating BW agent: 1. Extreme resistance to acute and chronic radiation (y-rays
and UV)'.I+1U8 2. Extreme resistance to des icca tion3~ 3. Very high resistance to decontamination (e .g.,
hydrogen peroxide)SO 4. Very tolerant to the effects of solvents2? 5. Highly transfonnable and amenable to genetic
engineering'" 27 and has been subjected to genomic sequencing and analysis (Makarova K5 et aI, unpublished
data)29. 31..52- The potential threat by such extremophiles is not limited to the Deinococcaceae. It is possible that
other very desicca tion-resistant microorganisms40 that are not yet described as radiation- or DNA damageresistant also could be engineered for BW. For example, experiments conducted aboard. a variety of spacecraft
including the European Retrievable Carrier and the Long Duration Exposure Facility indicate that a variety of
common terrestrial bacteria are able to withstand the harsh environment of space for periods as long as 6 years.
Because the radiation-resistance characteristics of many common organisms (and most extremophiles) are
many bacterial
pathogens may become classified as desiccation- or radiation-resistant and could
pose threats as engineered BW agents.
unknown, it is conceivable that as such characteristics are morc broadly examined,
representatives and other experts have highlighted flaws in these activities. It went
on to say "The Commission further believes that terrorists are more likely to be able
to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon." Making matters
worse, unlike most other terrorist attacks, a biological attack could infect victims
without their knowledge, and days could pass before victims develop deadly
symptoms. To address this problem, the U.S. has been forced to implement air
quality monitors throughout the country and stockpile antibiotics for emergency
use. A 2011 study conducted by the Congressional Research Service observes that:
"Unfortunately, the nature of the bioterrorism threat, with its high consequences
and low frequency, makes determining the bioterrorism risk difficult. To believe
otherwise could potentially be a deadly mistake
Impact - Diseases
Extinction
John Steinbruner (Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution) 1998 Biological
weapons: A plague upon all houses, Foreign Policy, Dec 22, LN
It is a considerable comfort and undoubtedly a key to our survival that, so far, the
main lines of defense against this threat have not depended on explicit policies or
organized efforts. In the long course of evolution, the human body has developed
physical barriers and a biochemical immune system whose sophistication and
effectiveness exceed anything we could design or as yet even fully understand. But
evolution is a sword that cuts both ways: New diseases emerge, while old diseases
mutate and adapt. Throughout history, there have been epidemics during which
human immunity has broken down on an epic scale. An infectious agent believed to
have been the plague bacterium killed an estimated 20 million people over a fouryear period in the fourteenth century, including nearly one-quarter of Western
Europe's population at the time. Since its recognized appearance in 1981, some 20
variations of the HIVvirus have infected an estimated 29.4 million worldwide, with
1.5 million people currently dying of aids each year. Malaria, tuberculosis, and
cholera-once thought to be under control-are now making a comeback. As we enter
the twenty-first century, changing conditions have enhanced the potential for
widespread contagion. The rapid growth rate of the total world population, the
unprecedented freedom of movement across international borders, and scientific
advances that expand the capability for the deliberate manipulation of pathogens
are all cause for worry that the problem might be greater in the future than it has
ever been in the past. The threat of infectious pathogens is not just an issue of
public health, but a fundamental security problem for the species as a whole.
War - General
Bioprospecting would eventually be regulated which would
create massive sovereignty disputes
Leary,08, a member of the biodiplomacy initiative team at University-Institute of
Advanced Studies ( David, Bi-polar Disorder? Is Bioprospecting an Emerging Issue
for the Arctic as well as for Antarctica?, Review of European Community &
International Environmental Law
Volume 17, Issue 1, pages 4155, April 2008, Wiley Online Library)
Although there have been periodic challenges to its legitimacy, the main international governance regime applying
to Antarctica is the ATS.9 The ATS is composed of five main treaties: the Antarctic Treaty (1959),10 the Convention
for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals (1971),11 the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living
Resources (1980),12 the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities (1988)13 and the
the Antarctic
Treaty is the way it has dealt with actual and potential disputes with respect to
territorial claims in Antarctica. Seven countries Argentina, Australia, Chile, France,
New Zealand, Norway and the UK each claim parts of Antarctica as their sovereign
territory. The US, Russia, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands and India, although parties to the Antarctic Treaty,
Madrid Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty (1991).14 One of the other major achievements of
do not recognize the validity of any of these claims, while both Russia and the US have reserved the right to make
the
United Kingdom tabled a short working paper that suggested three serious
concerns about the onset of bioprospecting activities in the Antarctic. l First, the
potential for conflict existed between free access co scientific information as
guaranteed in the Antarctic Treaty and the confidentiality that inevitably surrounds
the commercial Exploitation of bioactive material (i.e. parenring)". Second was the
issue of wherher and how regularion of bioprospeC ting hould proceed, and if so, who would oversee it.
Third, rhere was the issue of how to regulate revenues derived from commercial
raised b}, The Scientific Commerce on Antarctic Research ( CAR) in 1999." Then, ar ATCM XXV in 2002,
exploitation of Anrarctic species. The United Kingdom's paper was imporrant, for it
became the catalyst for the ATCPs realizing the need to give serious consideration
co bioprospecring in the polar south and alerted them to potential legal , political
and scientific complications that those activities might present to the ATS. In this
contexr, rhe rerm 'securiry" is construed ro mean rho e environmenral issue, includi ng bioprospecring, rhat
threaten rhe inregrir)/, efficiency and institurional effectiveness of the AT b}' tormenti ng conAicr or dissent ion
assers and interes ts rhar legirimize and makes essen rial rhe ro le of a secure, fu ncriona l, cooperarive reg ime
for governing rhe otl[h Polar region.
generally sharable and collaborative (Hemmings and Rogan-Finnemore 2005). But changing
patterns of scientific research in Antarctica fundamentally challenge this
assumption. The new era of genome enabled biology in Antarctica offers new
possibilities across a wide range of disciplines including systematics, microbiology, ecology, evolutionary
biology, physiology, biochemistry and molecular biology (U.S. National Research Council 2003). But with these
new opportunities come new challenges for the management of scientific research
in Antarctica. The increasing commercialization of Antarctic research and in
particular the emerging interest of the biotechnology industry in Antarcticas
possibilities potentially challenges a major assumption upon which international
governance in Antarctica is built.
seeing today, even though the Obama administration has scaled back the planned deployments. The Arctic has figured in this renewed interest in Cold
War weapons systems, particularly the upgrading of the Thule Ballistic Missile Early Warning System radar in Northern Greenland for ballistic missile
defence. The Canadian government, as well, has put forward new military capabilities to protect Canadian sovereignty claims in the Arctic, including
proposed ice-capable ships, a northern military training base and a deep-water port. Earlier this year Denmark released an all-party defence position
paper that suggests the country should create a dedicated Arctic military contingent that draws on army, navy and air force assets with shipbased
helicopters able to drop troops anywhere. Danish fighter planes would be tasked to patrol Greenlandic airspace. Last year Norway chose to buy 48
Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets, partly because of their suitability for Arctic patrols. In March, that country held a major Arctic military practice involving
7,000 soldiers from 13 countries in which a fictional country called Northland seized offshore oil rigs. The manoeuvres prompted a protest from Russia
which objected again in June after Sweden held its largest northern military exercise since the end of the Second World War. About 12,000 troops, 50
aircraft and several warships were involved. Jayantha Dhanapala, President of Pugwash and former UN under-secretary for disarmament affairs,
United States and the Russian Federation, which together own 95 per cent of the nuclear
weapons in the world converge on the Arctic and have competing claims. These
claims, together with those of other allied NATO countries Canada, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway
could, if unresolved, lead to conflict escalating into the threat or use of nuclear
weapons. Many will no doubt argue that this is excessively alarmist, but no circumstance in which nuclear
powers find themselves in military confrontation can be taken lightly. The current geo-political
threat level is nebulous and low for now, according to Rob Huebert of the University of Calgary, [the] issue is the uncertainty
as Arctic states and non-Arctic states begin to recognize the geo-political/economic
significance of the Arctic because of climate change.
exploring for oil and gas near the Gulf of Tonkin, an act apparently intended to
inhibit Vietnam from pursuing energy deposits. Vietnam said Tuesday that in
retaliation, it would send out new patrols, which would include the marine police, to
guard against increasing encroachment by Chinese fishing boats in the South China
Sea. India, which operates several joint ventures with Vietnams national energy
company, Petro Vietnam, said it would consider sending navy vessels to protect its
interests in the South China Sea. The latest episode followed an announcement by
Hainan Province in southern China last week that Chinese vessels would board and
search ships in contested areas of the waterway, which includes vital shipping lanes
through which more than a third of global trade moves. The new tensions among
China, Vietnam and India illustrate in stark terms the competition in the South China
Sea for what are believed to be sizable deposits of oil and gas. Some energy experts
in China see the sea as an important new energy frontier close to home that could
make China less dependent on its huge oil imports from the Middle East. On
Monday, Chinas National Energy Administration named the South China Sea as the
main offshore site for natural gas production. Within two years, China aims to
produce 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas from fields in the sea, a significant
increase from the 20 billion cubic meters produced so far, the agency said. Earlier
this year, Chinas third-largest energy company, the state-owned China National
Offshore Oil Corporation, began drilling with a rig in deep water in nondisputed
waters off the southern coast of China. The escalation in the South China Sea comes
less than a month after Xi Jinping took office as Chinas leader. Mr. Xi appears to
have taken a particular interest in the South China Sea and the serious dispute
between China and Japan over the islands known as Diaoyu in China and as
Senkaku in Japan. Whether any of Chinas most recent actions in the South China
Sea were associated with Mr. Xi was not clear. But Mr. Xi does lead a small group of
policy makers clustered in the Maritime Rights Office, which serves to coordinate
agencies within China, according to Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations
at Peking University, and other Chinese experts. The unit is part of the office of the
Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group, Mr. Zhu said. The leading small group, now
headed by Mr. Xi, is widely believed to be Chinas central policy-making group.
Chinas Foreign Ministry reiterated on Tuesday that China opposed oil and gas
development by other countries in disputed waters of the sea. China maintains that
it has undisputed sovereignty over the South China Sea, and that only China is
allowed to develop the energy resources. We hope that concerned countries
respect Chinas position and rights, said the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei.
Vietnam, which has long been wary of China but enjoys a relationship through its
governing Communist Party, summoned the Chinese ambassador on Monday to
protest the cutting of the seismic cable, the Vietnamese news media reported. A
Web site run by Petro Vietnam, the oil company, reported that the companys
exploration vessel Binh Minh 02 had its seismic cable severed by a Chinese fishing
vessel on Friday. In May 2011, the Vietnamese authorities said a similar cable of the
Binh Minh 02 was cut by three Chinese surveillance ships, resulting in weeks of antiChina protests in Hanoi. In its decree on the new patrols, Vietnam said that civilian
ships, supported by the marine police and a border force, would be deployed
starting next month to stop foreign vessels that violate fishing laws in waters
claimed by Vietnam. A senior official of Petro Vietnam, Pham Viet Dung, was quoted
in the Vietnamese news media as saying that large numbers of Chinese fishing
boats, many of them substantial vessels, had recently entered waters claimed by
Vietnam. The fishing vessels interfered with the operations of the oil company, he
said. India, whose state-run oil company, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, has a
45 percent interest in exploration with Petro Vietnam, also reacted strongly. The
head of the Indian Navy, Adm. D. K. Joshi, said that India was prepared to send navy
vessels to protect its interests in the sea. Now, are we preparing for it? Are we
having exercises of that nature? The short answer is yes, Admiral Joshi told
reporters in India.
AFF
Bio-prospecting Inevitable
The impact is inevitable limiting access to diverse marine
ecosystems causes even more destructive corner-cutting by
bioprospectors
Kushal Qanungo (writer for Science Development Net, a London-based science
news/analysis organization, January 2002 Time for a new deal on marine
bioprospecting http://www.scidev.net/global/biodiversity/opinion/time-for-a-newdeal-on-marine-bioprospecting.html
Such countries, however, are already sensitive to concerns over biopiracy, and
generally believe that they do not get a fair share of benefits from any
bioprospecting activity. As the long-term economic potential of marine genetic
resources becomes clear4, coastal states are therefore putting in place complex
laws restricting access to their marine biodiversity. These laws, together with the
high expectations that coastal states have of their marine biodiversity, are making
access for both scientific and commercial marine bio-prospecting increasingly
difficult3. There are a number of reasons why restricting access to marine
biodiversity will do little to stop marine bioprospecting in tropical coastal seas.
Firstly, a bioprospector can always negotiate ocean access with a neighbouring
coastal state, which is likely to share common marine flora and fauna. Secondly,
restricting access to biological resources is likely to make pharmaceutical
companies seek alternative sources of novel molecules such as modern
combinatorial chemistry that can provide large libraries of new molecules very
quickly for drug discovery. In other words, not only will restricting access fail to hold
back the pursuit of intellectual property, but the coastal state denying access would
also lose the chance to profit from its marine biodiversity. If marine diversity is to be
translated into monetary value, therefore, the best option for all tropical coastal
nations to pursue is a principle of open access.
A2 Bioprospecting Unethical
No runaway development - companies have ethics
Rose et al 12
products that could help poorer individuals live more comfortable lives (Kanter 2011). In 2002, Novartis established
a non-profit research center in Singapore to study diseases that most commonly affect tropical, less developed
regions and are neglected in treatment research in more developed countries
No Bioprospecting
Too many barriers for bioprospecting development
Rose et al 12
regional institution must be met in order for a drug to be marketed and sold in that jurisdiction. The FDA protocol is
their time and any negative effects. If all three stages of trials show that the drug is beneficial in treating disease
and does not cause serious side effects, then an application for approval of the drug must be compiled and
submitted again to the FDA or governing health institution of a region. This is the point when a drug is launched
onto the market. Production quality and standards must be upheld, and the product must be packaged, marketed,
estimated that the expense of bringing a new drug from the discovery phase, through the FDA regulatory hurdles,
and to market ranges from approximately $800 million to $2 billion USD.
Potential problems with this model include the use of a large pharmaceutical company as initial researchers in the
ABS agreement and stipulate what should happen if their research is carried out and another researcher or large
firm wants to acquire access to the resources. However, if transnational rules were established for different types of
researchers and stakeholders in the bioprospecting process, these contracts could be drawn up and enforced more
easily across borders. Moreover, transnational laws would enforce universities, who in fact are the owners of any IP
generated by their faculty (the inventors on patentable technology), to adhere to such agreements, ensuring that
ABS agreements are incorporated in the package of any relevant IP to companies wishing to pursue R&D for
eventual commercialization.
suggested that technological advances could increase the success of bioprospecting. Unfortunately, that analysis
Conclusions Prospecting has always tended to enrich the dreams and build up the hopes of some sectors of the
community. There is no doubt that there are many exciting, very valuable chemicals awaiting discovery in
organisms but they lie hidden among a much larger number of chemicals that are currently of little human value.
The developing understanding of secondary metabolite production suggests that combinatorial (bio)chemistry was
evolved by organisms to enhance the chances of finding the rare, potent, biologically active molecule that
enhanced the fitness of the producer. Given that humans often have quite different needs to those of other
organisms in terms of the types of biological activity that could be beneficial, it is rational for humans to develop
and utilise their own high throughput screening programmes to find the biological activity they seek. Once such a
screen is operating, the most efficient method of proceeding is to test the widest range of chemical compounds that
can be obtained most cheaply, preferably using chemicals that can be made economically on a large scale. It is
easier to identify ways by which human knowledge can be used to improve combinatorial chemistry or
combinatorial biochemistry in the laboratory than it is to see how knowledge can be used to improve the success
rate of bioprospecting in the field. The scientific realities discussed in this paper underpin the previous economic
analyses (Barbier and Aylward 1996; Simpson et al. 1996; Simpson 1997), which suggested that the economic
potential for bioprospecting is, and is likely to remain, very limited.
Principe (1996), In Biodiversity and its Importance to Human Health, Columbia University Press, New York; Rausser
and Small (2000), Journal of Political Economy 108: 173206]. Consequently ,
researcher at James Cook University (Phurpa, Health Impacts of Traditional Medicines and
Bioprospecting: A World Scenario Accentuating Bhutan's Perspective, Journal of Bhutan Studies, June 2008
http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/41223486/health-impacts-traditional-medicines-bioprospecting-worldscenario-accentuating-bhutans-perspective)
Despite these developments, of the known 30,000 human diseases or disorders, only one-third can some how be
treated symptomatically with drugs and that too at a great economic and social cost .
This paper presents the role and the impacts of the natural products, traditional medicines and the nature-based
drug discoveries. It also describes the potential, constraints and future directions in the area of natural productbased traditional medicines and nature-based drug discovery programs accentuating Bhutans perspectives.
against this threat have not depended on explicit policies or organized efforts. In the long course of evolution ,
the human
body has developed physical barriers and a biochemical immune system whose
sophistication and effectiveness exceed anything we could design or as yet even
fully understand. But evolution is a sword that cuts both ways: New diseases
emerge, while old diseases mutate and adapt. Throughout history, there have been
epidemics during which human immunity has broken down on an epic scale. An
infectious agent believed to have been the plague bacterium killed an estimated 20 million people over a four-year period in the
fourteenth century, including nearly one-quarter of Western Europe's population at the time. Since its recognized appearance in
widespread contagion. The rapid growth rate of the total world population, the unprecedented
freedom of movement across international borders, and scientific advances that expand the capability for the
deliberate manipulation of pathogens are all cause for worry that the problem might be greater in
the future than it has ever been in the past. The threat of infectious pathogens is not just an
issue of public health, but a fundamental security problem for the species as a
whole.