Biodiversity prospecting

There are now new rules for biodiversity prospecting regarding the collection of natural products. The 1993 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) established sovereign national rights over biological resources and committed member countries to conserve them, develop them sustainably, and share the benehts resulting from their use. 

Explain the Access and Benefit-Sharing Agreement for biodiversity prospecting and discuss the pros and cons of this agreement. 

W. Gollin, in Biodiversity Prospecting, World Resources Institute, Baltimore, MD, 1993, Annex 3. 

C. (eds). Biodiversity Prospecting Using Genetic Resources for Sustainable Development, pp. 255-287. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC. 

Mays, T.D., Mazan, K.D. Legal issues in sharing the benefits of biodiversity prospecting. J. Ethnopharmacol. 1996, 51, 93-109. 

Prasad MNV, Freitas H. (2003). Metal hyperaccumulation in plants— Biodiversity prospecting for phytoremediation technology. Electronic Journal of Biotechnology 6 275-321. 

As discussed, nature provided the source of inspiration for the synthesis of aroma chemicals. This remains as true today as it was in the nineteenth century. One of the reasons to explore the rain forests is biodiversity prospecting, which is the search for novel chemicals from biological sources. Rain forests are home not only to the majority of the world s flowering plants but to the majority of insects as well. This diversity of new flowers and pollinators increases the probability of discovering new aroma chemicals. 

Aquatic and Riparian Biodiversity in the Ebro Watershed Prospects and Threats... 

During past eras, mass mortalities were followed by a rapid recovery of biodiversity (Courtillot 1996). Now, however, mass mortality is man-made. For the first time the causes of biodiversity-loss are not temporary as in previous catastrophes. The demographic increase and escalation in the utilization of natural resources pose an increasing menace to biodiversity. Therefore, any prospect about natural product diversity in the far future is difficult to make. Views are pessimistic, unless we imagine a world populated by microbes that have survived the catastrophe or have mutated. Microbial life is typically rich in unusual secondary metabolites. 

Flalse, S.A. Ruprecht, J.K. and A.M. Pinder (2003) Salinisation and prospects for biodiversity in rivers and wetlands of south-west Western Australia.-Australian Journal of Botany 51, 673-688. 

Fisheries scientists continue to explore aquatic and marine bioresources for pharmaceuticals, nutra-ceuticals, and novel biomaterials as well as investigate distribution and biodiversity of marine organisms important to industrial utilization. In finding innovative uses for aquatic and marine products and thereby increasing the value of specific fish stocks, fisheries scientists also make more likely the prospect that a given stock will be more sustainably harvested over the long term. 

South American biomes are among the most diverse of the world. Besides the well-known Amazonian biodiversity, other tropical and subtropical ecosystems contain very rich plant communities. One of these is the BrazUian Atlantic Forest, today reduced to a fraction of its original distribution, making it very important to engage in cataloguing, evaluating, and prospecting its species in a sustainable way [23]. 

---