Sharing the benefits from genomic sequence data: A key to financing protection of global biodiversity?

A legal regime, known as Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS), was established under the CBD, based on the principles of national sovereignty and equity. It stipulates that the benefits obtained from the use of genetic resources are to be shared fairly and equitably with the provider countries of the resources.

However, the high expectations from the biodiversity-rich developing countries on shared benefits have been threatened by the emergence of Digital Sequence Information (DSI), a technological development that has significantly reduced the demand for physical genetic material: now the data can be digitally sequenced relatively cheaply, with rapid exchange among researchers, institutions, countries, and databases. Traditional research and development in life sciences are increasingly moving away from the use of physical specimens to DSI.

Since it is generally difficult to identify the original source of the sequences, this development risks undermining the principle of fair and equitable benefit-sharing and thus also reducing incentives to protect biodiversity.

The topic of DSI had a significant impact on the negotiation process and the outcome of the overall post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) adopted at COP 15 in 2022. As with the CBD negotiations in the early 1990s, developing countries made progress on benefit-sharing conditional on support for further commitments on conservation and sustainable use. The result was decisions at COP 15 in 2022 and COP 16 in 2024 that created a multilateral mechanism for benefit-sharing from DSI based on voluntary payments. Commercial users of DSI are encouraged to pay up to 1% of profits or up to 0.1% of revenue into the new Cali Fund.

 Importantly, the potentially large funds under the mechanism are to be earmarked for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and especially in developing countries.

4 years after its establishment, this presentation will provide a status of how far the global DSI mechanism has developed and discuss what is required for it to live up to its enormous potential as a game-changer in filling the resource mobilization gap for biodiversity.