Everything

The international community has achieved remarkable commitments to regulate the exploration and exploitation of marine genetic resources (MGRs), including international legally-binding instruments.  The objective of the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) is “to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, for the present and in the long term, through effective implementation of the relevant provisions of the Convention and further international cooperation and coordination.” Fourteen principles and approaches are set out to guide Parties towards this goal.

Everywhere

According to the BBNJ Agreement MGR are any material of marine plant, animal, microbial or other origin containing functional units of heredity of actual or potential value. The established Clearing-House Mechanism will be primarily constituted by an open access platform, the precise modalities of which will be determined by the Conference of the Parties. Gaps and emerging issues in the current legal framework have been analysed. Efforts have also been made to develop technical guidance on guiding principles, knowledge sharing, capacity building and technology transfer, particularly for developing countries. Underlying these initiatives, however, is the notion of a promised land in which various public and private actors are eager to claim their share.

All at once

On paper, exploring ABNJs should help conserve biodiversity and ensure its sustainable use. Unfortunately for us, history is replete with examples of ecosystem changes and loss of biodiversity caused by our presence in different parts of the planet.

Science plays a central role in current and future decision-making over MRGs. While the focus has been on capacity and discovery for growth, understanding how scientific knowledge is exchanged, disseminated, and assimilated and how degrowth can be part of the framing is of the essence. Furthermore, the boundary between Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) and the high seas is unclear from a biodiversity perspective. Scientific coordination at the global level will be key to assessing genetic connectivity between areas and validating the techniques and indices used to estimate genetic diversity, among others.

When the Devil is into details. What role for science in shaping access and fair and equitable sharing of benefits from marine genetic resources?

Until the agreement is ratified by the Parties and enters into force, the scientific community has a lot of work ahead of it. Building on the findings from fifty years of research, this talk calls for reflective thinking on MGRs. Natural resources have been prone to accelerated competition, overexploitation, underutilization, and conflict, and MGRs are no exception. The scientific community should address the remits within which policy and societal goals can safely operate, make precautionary approaches functional at the international level, and understand when social and economic benefits derive from the non-use of MGRs.

How to cite: Pérez Rodríguez, M. and A. Ballesteros, M.: ABNJ Marine Genetic Resources: Everything, everywhere, all at once. , One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-1115, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-1115, 2025.

The  Agreement on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) is poised to play a critical role in regulating access to and benefit-sharing from Marine Genetic Resources (MGR) located in areas beyond national jurisdictions. MGR are increasingly valued for their potential in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and other scientific advancements, raising urgent questions about equitable benefit-sharing from these resources. The BBNJ Agreement introduces specific measures aimed at addressing these issues, but its effectiveness depends on harmonizing with other international frameworks, notably the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge (GRATK). This paper explores these intersections and identifies challenges to ensuring that benefits derived from MGR flow equitably to all parties, including developing nations and indigenous communities.

First, the BBNJ Agreement brings to light the unique legal status of MGR in areas beyond national jurisdiction, where no single state holds sovereignty. Unlike the CBD, which primarily covers genetic resources within national territories, the BBNJ must address MGR in international waters, requiring cooperative frameworks among states. However, the agreement does not fully resolve the question of access rights or the distribution of benefits from MGR, which could result in exploitation by entities from wealthier nations unless robust regulations are established.

Furthermore, while the CBD has advanced mechanisms for benefit-sharing, it  focus on resources within national borders. The BBNJ will need to create parallel mechanisms suited for international waters, yet compatible with existing CBD and other instruments, to ensure a seamless integration of benefit-sharing practices. An additional challenge lies in identifying and recording the origin of genetic material in international waters to enable fair benefit distribution. Advances in traceability and transparency technologies, as well as international cooperation, will be essential for implementing effective monitoring under the BBNJ.

In Latin America, and specifically in Brazil, the implementation of benefit-sharing for MGR presents unique challenges, especially where MGR are connected to traditional knowledge. In Brazil, many marine genetic resources are intertwined with the cultural practices and traditional knowledge of Indigenous and local communities, who have preserved and utilized these resources for generations. Additionally, regional cooperation within Latin America could foster a collective approach to these challenges, creating aligned benefit-sharing frameworks and reinforcing protections for traditional knowledge.

In conclusion, implementing effective benefit-sharing mechanisms under the BBNJ Agreement will require addressing the legal and procedural gaps among BBNJ, TRIPS, CBD, and GRATK. It demands concerted international cooperation, regulatory innovation, and the deployment of new traceability technologies. Only through harmonization of these frameworks can the BBNJ’s goals be realized, ensuring that MGR from international waters serve as a shared resource and source of equitable benefits, particularly for those nations and communities historically marginalized in global resource-sharing arrangements. This paper proposes potential policy recommendations for navigating these complex intersections and ensuring that the promise of the BBNJ Agreement is fulfilled through fair, transparent, and inclusive benefit-sharing practices.

How to cite: Reis de Oliveira, P. H.: Marine Genetic Resources under BBNJ Agreement: interactions with TRIPS, CBD and GRATK and the challenges for effective implementation of benefit sharing., One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-922, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-922, 2025.

Mission Microbiomes AtlantECO (MMA) is an international study of the most fundamental fabric of the ocean — the ocean microbiome — aiming to understand its structure, functioning and connectivity in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is an initiative of the European Union’s research and innovation project AtlantECO, and an initiative of the All Atlantic Ocean Research and Innovation Alliance (AAORIA), which aims at sharing capacity along and across the Atlantic, and providing knowledge-based resources to help design policies for the management and protection of Atlantic Ecosystem Services. The success and legacy of MMA on science and society relies on the fair, open and inclusive collaboration among its partners from South America, South Africa and Europe. We will present MMA’s Data Sharing and Publication Best Practices (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7791092). With respect to the Convention on Biological Diversity (both the Nagoya Protocol & BBNJ Agreement), equitable access and shared capacity can be evidenced by statistics about where digital marine genetic resources originate within exclusive economic zones and the high seas, and who is accessing and exploiting these resources. We will present a few services and statistics that can be generated by the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in support to fair, open and inclusive collaboration.

How to cite: Pesant, S., Meszaros, L., Woollard, P., Kadhirvelu, V., Lathi, A., Cochrane, G., and Abreu, A. and the Mission Microbiomes AtlantECO: The Ocean Microbiome genetic resource: equitable access and shared capacity for the benefit of One Ocean, One Health., One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-688, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-688, 2025.

The new treaty on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ Treaty) marks the first formal attempt to address the global sharing of benefits derived from Marine Genetic Resources (MGRs) of Areas Beyond Natural Jurisdiction (ABNJ). Driven by concerns from developing nations regarding inequitable distribution of benefits, the BBNJ Treaty requires the sharing of both monetary and non-monetary benefits from MGRs, including digital sequence information. However, the BBNJ Treaty is silent as to both intellectual property rights and the Treaty’s application to “straddling” MGRs that move across jurisdictional boundaries. While a new World Intellectual Property Organization treaty (WIPO Treaty) governs patents on genetic resources, it does not specifically address MGRs or digital sequence information, requiring only that patent applicants disclose the origin or source of genetic materials. Since many MGRs are mobile throughout their lifecycle and cross jurisdictional boundaries, the “origin” or “source” of these MGRs is unclear under the status quo. Moreover, the BBNJ Treaty’s provisions for non-monetary sharing of benefits (e.g., sharing of data) are often inconsistent with patent property rights prohibiting the unauthorized use of patented material. This paper argues that to meaningfully address global inequities, the Conference of Parties to the BBNJ Treaty should address these gaps when developing the access and benefits sharing modalities. We recommend that the COP: (1) clarify in which circumstances straddling MGRs are deemed “of” ABNJ and therefore subject to the BBNJ Treaty; (2) require that patent applications for inventions derived from MGRs "of" ABNJ or associated digital sequence information disclose ABNJ as the origin or source, consistent with the WIPO Treaty; (3) incorporate royalties from the commercialization of such patents into the monetary benefits sharing modalities; and (4) develop a licensing mechanism for such patents to effectively enable the required sharing of non-monetary benefits. A comprehensive treatment of these gaps through access and benefits sharing modalities will help the BBNJ Treaty to further the Common Heritage of (Hu)mankind Principle, promoting the equitable use of ABNJ resources for the benefit of current and future generations.

How to cite: Melvin, E.: Fixing Ownership of Mobile Resources? How Intellectual Property Rights Could Complicate Access and Benefits Sharing Regimes for Marine Genetic Resources, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-841, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-841, 2025.

The adoption of the BBNJ Agreement in June 2023 marks a pivotal moment in global ocean governance, introducing explicit and robust provisions for marine genetic resource (MGR) activity in areas beyond national jurisdiction under Part II. By addressing longstanding regulatory gaps, particularly in benefit-sharing and environmental stewardship, the BBNJ Agreement offers a critical framework for the sustainable and equitable management of marine bioprospecting. However, this progress is met with resistance from several Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties (ATCPs), who assert that the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) already provides a “competent” and “comprehensive” framework for managing marine biological diversity in the Antarctic Treaty Area (ATA), which encompasses most of the Southern Ocean. These claims, part of a two-decade narrative positioning the ATS as the “appropriate” framework for bioprospecting governance, now intersect with the BBNJ Agreement’s mandate under Article 5(2) to avoid “undermining” existing regional instruments.

This presentation critically examines whether the BBNJ Agreement’s provisions for MGR governance genuinely threaten to undermine the ATS or, conversely, serve to bolster its ambiguous and underdeveloped regulatory framework. First, it dismantles the ATS’s claims of comprehensiveness, highlighting the absence of explicit rules governing bioprospecting and the system’s reliance on weak and poorly complied with default rules/mechanisms. Second, it situates the ATS within the broader regime complex, which includes overlapping international frameworks such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) with its Nagoya Protocol, and the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. This analysis demonstrates that the ATS operates as one of many relevant regimes, challenging its assertation of exclusive competence over bioprospecting in the region. Finally, the presentation argues that the BBNJ Agreement’s provisions – particularly on benefit-sharing and transparency – would complement and enhance the ATS’s governance, rather than undermine it. By integrating these global standards into regional governance, the Southern Ocean could benefit from a more cohesive and equitable approach to MGR management. This analysis underscores the urgency of moving beyond isolated governance claims and embracing a more integrated framework, ensuring that Antarctic genetic resources are managed sustainably and fairly in line with evolving international legal norms.  

How to cite: Tracey, H. E. and Craik, N.: Reconsidering Antarctic Marine Bioprospecting Governance in Light of the BBNJ Agreement, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-738, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-738, 2025.

Phytoplankton are essential to marine ecosystems and the global carbon cycle, with their structure, diversity, and functions influenced by a complex mix of biotic and abiotic factors. Yet, the link between phytoplankton diversity and ecosystem functioning is still poorly understood, largely due to limited data on global phytoplankton diversity patterns. This study uses satellite-based measurements, machine learning, and metagenomic datasets from Tara Oceans to bridge the gap between genetic information and global-scale ocean monitoring from space. This approach allows us to map phytoplankton groups and their environmental drivers, providing a new lens for defining marine biogeographical provinces. Our findings suggest that the relationship between phytoplankton diversity and ecosystem functioning in terms of primary production varies globally, revealing three distinct regimes: negative correlations in high-latitude, nutrient-rich ecosystems; positive but saturating effects near nutrient-rich coastal areas; and strong positive links in nutrient-poor, open-ocean regions. By establishing these relationships, our work paves the way for further remote-sensing-based biodiversity assessments. Ultimately, this research offers a framework for understanding and predicting ecosystem responses to global change, which can support sustainable ocean management and conservation strategies.

How to cite: El Hourany, R., Zinger, L., Pierella Karlusich, J., Junger, P., Bowler, C., and Levy, M.: Mapping global phytoplankton community structure and diversity from space for ecosystem insights, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-798, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-798, 2025.