Policy Brief (2023) A new dawn for global benefit-sharing: capitalizing on the Global Biodiversity Framework for Marine Genetic Resources from Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction

Hartman Scholz, A., Humphries, F., Vanagt, T. and Jaspars, M. (2023).A new dawn for global benefit-sharing: capitalizing on the Global Biodiversity Framework for Marine Genetic Resources from Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. Harness the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to create a single, harmonized, multilateral approach to benefit-sharing for digital sequence information (DSI) on marine genetic resources (MGRs) from Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ). Elevate discussions to high-level vision and criteria for a solution for fair, equitable and efficient benefit sharing rather than modalities. Consistent with the Conference of the Parties (COP) DSI decision, consider extending the multilateral mechanism to genetic resources or biological diversity.

2. A global fund that includes benefits from MGR and planet-wide DSI will require standardized, overarching rules for benefit-sharing to facilitate the ambitions of the GBF. Simple rules for the global dataset prevent jurisdiction shopping and ensure benefits from the use of global datasets that already include DSI on MGRs of ABNJ flow back to Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ).

3. Use scientific data and metadata, including geographical tagging, as an indicator for fairness and equity, such as the portion of the global fund that can be dedicated to ABNJ. The complexities of scientific use of data, mean tracking and tracing is neither efficient nor practical but transparency in public data is essential.

4. Make MGR and ABNJ-sourced data attractive to work with, so that its potential can grow.