By SIMON COLLINS
Scientists and lawyers at an international conference in Christchurch have called for a new deal to return the proceeds from Antarctic "bioprospecting" to clean up Antarctica.
The two-day conference effectively endorsed a proposal by Tasmanian conservationist Alistair Graham to require licences for bioprospecting, with royalties going into an international trust fund.
The meeting agreed unanimously that it was both too late and undesirable to stop the extraction of genes and compounds from Antarctic mosses, sea life and bacteria that could be used to develop medical drugs or in other commercial uses.
It decided that the Antarctic Treaty principle of setting Antarctica aside as the common heritage of humanity should be implemented by sharing the commercial benefits.
Sydney University law professor Don Rothwell said the existing law of the sea provided a model.
"It would divide up the benefits from deep seabed mineral exploitation between the commercial operator, who would have to be a huge multinational, and the international community," he said. "It envisages a 50/50 split of the royalties and the benefits, and the profits are distributed by an international seabed authority to the members of the UN.
"The discussion ... suggests that the benefits from bioprospecting would go back to Antarctica to be used for environmental cleanup."
Professor Rothwell said his own view was that an antarctic bioprospecting convention should be negotiated to bring in all countries, not just the fewer than 30 nations that have signed the Antarctic Treaty.
However, the conference agreed that either a new treaty or a new protocol to the treaty would be better than nothing.
A scientist from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa), Vicky Webb, reporting on a group workshop, said New Zealand and other treaty nations should seek an "interim solution" at this year's treaty meeting in Madrid in June, requiring countries to disclose any bioprospecting work.
Canterbury University geographer Dr Wendy Lawson said the issue was urgent because of the rate at which Antarctic specimens were already being lodged in the world's genetic databases.
Herald Feature: Conservation and Environment
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