Bioprospecting in Antartica

Sydney Morning Herald | 12 April 2003

RICH HARVEST FROM THE ICE LAND, BUT PROFITS MELT AWAY

Antarctica may be a goldmine -- but sharing the proceeds is problematic, Andrew Darby writes.

It may be icy and hostile, but Antarctica is turning out to be home to more than the blizzard.

Among fields of pack ice and in beds of hyper-saline lakes, scientist are turning up microscopic organisms that live happily in these extremes.

To bioprospectors, some offer tantalising hopes in fields as diverse as ice-cream production and heart disease prevention.

This is presenting managers of the polar wilderness with a new challenge. Potentially lucrative organisms are being patented from a place where no royalties are payable. There is a threat to what is meant to be the common heritage of mankind.

Has the horse bolted?

"In a big way," said Alistair Graham, a polar specialist with the Tasmanian Conservation Trust. "It's 15 years since the first bioprospecting was done in Antarctica, and now numerous products have been found."

A senior Australian Government official disagreed. "What's happened so far is very small beer in global terms," he said. "But it would be good if the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) starts thinking about it before it becomes a major economic issue."

Marinomonin, a protein of a bacteria living in sediment of a super salty Antarctic lake, would seem to offer no ready promise to the tastebuds. But it's appealing enough to Unilever for the food giant to patent it, according to the ATS's advisory Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR).

Marinomonin is an anti-freeze protein that could be added to ice-cream to keep it creamy, even through the thawing and refreezing that now turns the food crunchy with ice crystals. To Unilever, which last month posted news of a big expansion to its $14 billion global ice-cream business, the rewards could be substantial.

The danger is that other potential benefits may be denied, according to SCAR. It has warned treaty nations that "such patent efforts might well restrict the use of this knowledge by Antarctic scientists".

Another case of potentially wider health benefit involves a cold-adapted bacteria that lives in sea ice. This bug can produce some of the polyunsaturated fatty acids that help with human heart disease, but are now restricted to fish and algal oils. Work at the Antarctic Co-operative Research Centre in Hobart suggests that these bacteria, if fermented, could do the same work much more cheaply.

An international workshop was organised in Christchurch, New Zealand, this week to trawl through bioprospecting in Antarctica. It was told of other cases, such as the patenting of volcano-related microbes that could be used in DNA tests of human tissue, and of drugs derived from polar sponges.

The meeting heard that the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which can control the commercial benefits of bioprospecting, does not apply to areas that lack national sovereignty. All territorial claims in Antarctica -- including Australia's 42 per cent stake of the continent -- are held in abeyance under the terms of the Antarctic Treaty.

Mr Graham told the meeting it might be possible to get around this dilemma, and suggested an international agreement to pool the revenues of Antarctic bioprospecting, perhaps to use in cleaning up costly blots on the polar landscape such as abandoned research stations.

GOING FURTHER (compiled by GRAIN)

Simon Collins, "Call for Antarctic earnings to be spent on cleanup", New Zealand News, 9 April 2003.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3351299& thesection=news&thesubsection=general

Simon Collins, "Clean up the ice from bio profits", New Zealand News, 8 April 2003.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3351515& thesection=news&thesubsection=general

"Bioprospecting in Antarctica", A two-day workshop, 7 & 8 April 2003, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
http://www.anta.canterbury.ac.nz/bio/index.htm