Third World Network

Yesterday’s biopirate hid seeds in her boots, but

tomorrow’s may steal genetic sequence data. Faster and

cheaper gene sequencing is creating massive new digital

databases of biodiversity. Some of them contain the DNA

sequences of thousands, even tens of thousands, of

varieties of crops, crop wild relatives, medicinal plants, and

microbes. Almost none of these databases currently apply

access and benefit sharing (ABS) rules of the CBD and

Nagoya Procotol.

The technology for this “digital DNA” to be downloaded

and then introduced into new organisms is becoming a

reality, meaning that biodiversity can be moved across the

planet electronically and possibly without the material

transfer agreement (MTA) that many countries use to

implement ABS rules.

For example, European scientists might use an internet

database to obtain gene sequences from South American

tomatoes and tomato wild relatives. If they identify

valuable diversity, instead of going to South America to

negotiate an ABS agreement, they might instead use

CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing to reproduce that diversity in

European tomatoes - without an agreement with the

country of origin.