Biopiracy at Sea: The Emerging Threat to Marine Biodiversity | InformativeBD

Mahmood Khan Yousufi from the institute of India  and Narendra Kumar Thapak, from the institute of India.  wrote a Research article about, Biopiracy at Sea: The Emerging Threat to Marine Biodiversity. Entitled, Biopiracy of marine organisms: an emerging paradigm. This research paper published by the Journal of Biodiversity and Environmental Sciences | JBES. an open access scholarly research journal on Biodiversity. under the affiliation of the International Network For Natural Sciences| INNSpub. an open access multidisciplinary research journal publisher.

Abstract

The modern drugs commercially available nowadays are widely isolated from natural reservoirs. Penicillin was isolated from a mold and Aspirin was isolated from a willow tree. The recent advanced scientific research has further extended the explorations for medicinal drugs in the marine reservoirs. Some of the drugs based on marine organisms have proved to be quite effective in treating diseases like cancer and Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The different marine organisms like sponges, molluscs, echinoderms, tunicates and bryozoans are being actively used or trialled for the preparation of useful pharmaceutical drugs. The scientists, researchers and pharmaceutical corporations of the world compete to discover new drugs from global marine reservoirs. The marine organisms are freely available in the marine ecosystems and lack of global legislations provide free hands to the biopirates to exploit the marine reservoirs and isolate different organisms from it. The enormous explorations in the marine reservoirs by the biopirates are causing damage to its ecosystems and its lifeforms. In this investigation, it was concluded that though scientific explorations should be allowed in the marine reservoirs for producing lifesaving drugs but overexploitation of marine reservoirs should be prohibited. It is suggested through this investigation that proper tracking of marine reservoirs is the present requirement to face the challenges being laid down by the biopirates.

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Introduction

The marine water accounts for about 97% of total water present on the land area of this blue planet (Munn, 2003). The marine ecosystems comprise of rich biological diversity that includes, plants, animals, and various microscopic life forms. The scientific explorations around the globe are incorporating global marine ecological resources. The fact sheet of United Nations interprets in the ocean conference held in the year 2017 that the global oceans comprises of 500000 and 10 million marine species (United Nations, 2017). The marine phytoplanktons produces 50 percent of oxygen on earth (Bittel, 2019). The species heterogeneity associated with the marine ecosystems lies between 0.7 to 1.0 million species with millions of bacteria, viruses and other microbial species (United Nations, 2017). The results of various research investigations depict that global marine resources have been often utilized by local individuals residing near the marine reservoirs as nutritional source and for curing health ailments. At present, about 7.5% of the global marine reservoirs are safeguarded (Briggs, 2020). World Wildlife Federation suggests a term ‘Marine Protected Areas’ that involves efficiently managing or safeguarding the marine ecological reserves and the habitats of various life forms associated with it (Reuchlin-Hugenholtz and McKenzie, 2015). According to the International Union for Conservation of Natural Resources during world conservation congress, various global states agreed Motion 53 that mainly urged to safeguard 30% of the global marine ecosystems up to 2030 (Dinmore, 2016).

Various historical evidences depict that variety of marine life forms were employed for medicinal usage. The written record of medicinal herbs dates back to about 5000 years (Pan et al., 2014). In China in 2953 BCE in the empire of Fu Hsi taxes were levied on the medicines derived from fish (Newman, 2019). Hippocrates in 400 BCE observed antibiotic efficacy of some sponges and used it for curing wounds of soldiers (Munn, 2003). The personal physician of the emperor Claudius suggested the usage of electric fish viz. Torpedo nobilana secretions to treat headaches and even migraines (Janik, 2014).

Romans used the algae as medicines for the treatment of various health ailments (Anis et al., 2017). Khalilieh and Boulos in their investigation described notable uses of micro and macro algae extracts for curing health disorders (Khalilieh and Boulos, 2006). Secundus in 1603exhibited the application of stingray spines to treat toothaches (Narchi, 2015). The ancient Chinese medicinal literature available in Chinese Materia Medica depicts that various marine organisms were utilized in the ancient Chinese traditional medicinal therapies (Fu et al.,2016). The use of marine invertebrates for healing purposes has also been reported during ancient Greek times and the initial Byzantium (Voultsiadou, 2010). The use of marine turtles for preparation of traditional medicines has also been reported (Alves, 2006). The treatment of human health disorders from animals and their isolated compounds is often called as zootherapy (Alves, 2006). In different regions of Brazil, the fisherman uses different species of fish for medicinal purposes (Pinto et al., 2015). A well-known medical Scholar Ibn Sina also popularly known as Avicenna in his book “Canon of Medicine” depicts isolation of medicinal material from skin of marine animals (Nizamoglu, 2015). There are various marine organisms like sponges, corals, crabs, mollusks, and sea horses that are used in various parts of Asia and other global regions in traditional medicines (Kataona, 2015). Additionally, the sea life natural stores are also the supplies of antimicrobial constituents like the cationic antimicrobial peptides (Patrzykat, 2003).

From the above historical evidences, it is clear that the marine organisms have been employed for therapeutic purposes since ages. These evidences act as an attraction for the pharmaceutical corporations, researchers and scientists to deeply explore marine ecosystems for new biological innovations. With the passage of time and advancement in the technical research, the explorations in the ocean reservoirs have enormously risen. The insufficiency of global legislations to restrict uncontrolled explorations of global marine reserves is seriously causing damage to the global ocean life forms. The biopirates are exponentially isolating the marine organisms for manufacturing therapeutic drugs and subjecting them to patenting. The patent war between the pharmaceutical corporations to conquer monopoly over the marine ecosystems is definitely a matter of fact in the current scenario. Various pharmaceutical corporations are involved in manufacturing potential therapeutic compounds from marine lifeforms. Some of the significant pharmaceutical corporations are Santen Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Icos corporation, Island Kinetics Inc., HRD corporations, Procter & Gamble Company, Heliae Development LLC. and Codexis Inc. (Ninawe and Indulkar, 2014). The various patents being issued with respect to biologically active compounds isolated from marine organisms include US8486960 B2, US8450489 B2, US8445701 B2, US8586597 B2, USRE44599 E1, US8293943 B1, US8524980 B2, and US8586051 B2. (Ninawe and Indulkar, 2014). The pharmaceutical corporations are just performing theft of nature as biopirates and generating huge financial assets. The present study basically aims to explore this new challenge that is being created by the biopirates concerning biopiracy of global marine lifeforms. 

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