Abstract
The “marine world” is endowed with diverse life forms. The life under the oceans is bestowed with a unique gene pool and characteristics owing to extreme conditions such as high salt concentration and temperature variations. The marine biodiversity is an extremely rich resource for the development of a wide array of applications in food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics. Various forms of traditional knowledge, including traditional medicinal knowledge, have been silently developing over the centuries, with the coastal tribes in nations across the globe. Unfortunately, marine traditional knowledge has been underestimated both commercially and legally. It has still not gained its due importance at the international platform for sustainable use and development. An attempt has been made in the present study to collate information on marine traditional knowledge based medicine. Recent trends of marine bioprospecting by various nations including India have been discussed, followed by the study of legal provisions dealing with marine bioprospecting that aim at conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity and associated traditional knowledge. Convention of Biological Diversity, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas and World Intellectual Property Organization are the major international legal instruments that discuss the concepts of Prior Informed Consent, access and benefit sharing with regard to biopiracy and provide guidelines and limits for conducting marine scientific research.
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Abbreviations
- ABS:
-
Access and benefit sharing
- ADB:
-
Asian Development Bank
- AIDS:
-
Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome
- ASPA:
-
Antarctic Specially Protected Area
- AZT:
-
Azidothymidine
- CBD:
-
Convention of Biological Diversity
- CBR:
-
Community Biodiversity Registers
- CCAMLR:
-
Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources
- COP:
-
Conference of Parties
- CTE:
-
Committee on Trade and Environment
- DBT:
-
Department of Biotechnology
- EEZ:
-
Exclusive economic zone
- FDA:
-
Food and Drug Administration
- IBAMA:
-
Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources
- IGC:
-
Intergovernmental Committee on Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore
- IPR:
-
Intellectual Property Rights
- IUCN:
-
International Union for Conservation of Nature
- MAT:
-
Mutually agreed terms
- NBA:
-
National Biodiversity Authority
- NIO:
-
National Institute of Oceanography
- PIC:
-
Prior Informed Consent
- SCP:
-
Standing Committee on Patents
- SKB:
-
SmithKline Beecham
- TEK:
-
Traditional ecological knowledge
- TK:
-
Traditional knowledge
- TKDL:
-
Traditional Knowledge Digital Library
- UNCED:
-
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
- UNCLOS:
-
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
- USP:
-
University of South Pacific
- WIPO:
-
World Intellectual Property Organization
- WTO:
-
World Trade Organization
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Acknowledgements
We would like to express our regards and gratitude to Dr. K. D. Raju and Dr. Tapas Bandyopadhyay at the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law, for their valuable suggestions during the course of the study.
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Demunshi, Y., Chugh, A. Role of traditional knowledge in marine bioprospecting. Biodivers Conserv 19, 3015–3033 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-010-9879-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-010-9879-9