Multilateral benefit-sharing from digital sequence information will support both science and biodiversity conservation
Nature Communications 23 February 2022
10.1038/s41467-022-28594-0
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New genetic data policy must promote biodiversity conservation
There is widespread agreement that urgent international action is needed to stem the ongoing destruction of our planet’s biodiversity
Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity are negotiating the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, which will shape efforts to protect our planet in the coming decades.
Disagreements, however, have arisen regarding how to treat data derived from genetic resources, known as digital sequence information (DSI).
A culture of data sharing
Scientists have a long and successful history of sharing DSI openly, even before the days of the internet. This culture of sharing is central to biodiversity research and has driven technological advances in fields as diverse as medicine, food security, and green energy production. Online databases such as those managed by EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) contain DSI for many hundreds of thousands of organisms and grow each day. These widely-used resources support scientific reproducibility, transparency, and advancement. DSI sharing, for example, was crucial to the rapid development of SARS-CoV-2 tests and vaccines.
In a paper published in Nature Communications, 41 researchers from 17 countries explain why a policy solution on DSI is urgently needed and propose a mechanism that would support biodiversity conservation while also better sharing the benefits of DSI research.
Multilateral policy mechanism
“The biodiversity of our planet is in real danger,” said Guy Cochrane, Team Leader at EMBL-EBI. “To protect biodiversity, we need to first understand it and this can only be achieved if we work together across national borders. Open data is absolutely essential for biodiversity research and conservation, so the world needs a policy solution that does not limit the flow of data between countries.”
The authors suggest a policy mechanism that would create a positive feedback loop to encourage countries to generate and share digital sequence information on their biodiversity, while distributing benefits from its use equitably. The authors argue that such a policy mechanism must be multilateral, which means that nations around the world must cooperate and agree on common rules. The paper also calls on policymakers to engage with researchers in their countries who depend on access to DSI, so that any policy solution will not hinder crucial biodiversity research.
Open access and fair benefit sharing
“Biodiversity is a natural reservoir on which depends our food and health security and a framework of well-being,” said Halima Benbouza, Director at the National Council of Scientific Research and Technologies in Algeria. “Yet, it is threatened and to conserve it and stop losing it, open access to data for life scientists, coupled to fair and equitable benefit sharing of the advantages of its utilisation, should be the essence of a global policy solution.”
Open letter for open access
The Digital Sequence Information Scientific Network has published an open letter calling on Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to give researchers a voice in the negotiations, and support open access to genomic data for biodiversity.
Funding
This work was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) WiLDSI 031B0862 and Horizon Europe.
