Barcoding scientists aspire to adhere to the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity by promoting conservation, sustainability, and the equitable sharing of benefits arising from use of genetic resources. (Image: Juan Manuel Escalante, wwww.realitat.com)

With each species lost to the mass extinction crisis, the natural economy of the nation and of the world is greatly diminished. An endangered animal may hold the cure for cancer; a threatened plant could someday become a major food crop; and even bacteria often provide novel molecular structures in polymer science. As the rainforest is destroyed and habitats are degraded, conservationists are now urgently searching for dramatic new ways to save these economic resources. In this provocative and important book, Joseph Henry Vogel details one potential solution that has met with increasing interest and popularity: the privatization of genetic information. Vogel cogently makes the case that the world should abandon the doctrine of “the common heritage of mankind” and create private property rights over genes. Landowners, once vested with the genetic resources on their land, will have a newfound financial incentive to protect what they now already control. Genes for Sale provides an overview of the many complexities inherent in implementing a viable conservation policy. Vogel elaborates both technical issues like the construction of a “gargantuan database” of land titles and biological inventories, and political issues like legal reform. Clearly written, engaging, and timely, Genes for Sale provides students, scientists, and policy makers alike with the ideal introduction to an exciting and controversial new approach to saving our precious living heritage.

Societal Impact Statement: The Fourth Industrial Revolution is underway. Controversy surrounds the choice of modality for access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their utilization, as established in the third objective of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The modality chosen by the Conference of the Parties should promote conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources, which are the first and second objectives of the convention. “Bounded openness over natural information” achieves all three objectives by aligning incentives between users and Providers. With philanthropic support, the modality can also be applied to unpublished traditional knowledge, which would enhance food security.Summary: Several international agreements have provisions for “access to genetic resources” and “fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from [their] utilization” (ABS). The optimal modality has proven elusive for the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Nagoya Protocol (NP). Such failure need not be so. We embrace reductionism and partition genetic resources into tangible and intangible attributes and classify the latter as natural or artificial information. The economics of information justifies “rents,” which is the difference between what is paid and what would have been paid in a competitive market. Fairness and equity imply protection for natural information equal to that of artificial information. Bilateralism eliminates rents through competition and renders royalties infinitesimal, thus defeating ABS. The proposed Global Multilateral Benefit‐Sharing Mechanism (GMBSM) could capture rents and distribute royalty income proportional to habitat for terrestrial species, and to CO₂reductions for marine species and wild relatives of crops. Alignment of incentives for conservation would facilitate transition to half‐Earth. Domesticated species require stronger incentives for conservation than do nondomesticated species. The Multilateral System (MLS) of The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) should be expanded. Enclosure of traditional knowledge not yet in public domain through a benefit‐sharing mechanism could incentivize communities to deposit samples into the CGIAR Genebanks and resume seed exchange, which is essential for food security. A robust modality of ABS for the CBD, NP, ITPGRFA and other agreements is “bounded openness.”

Just as titles are created after completion of a work, neologisms may emerge when a concept has already taken shape. Although "bounded openness over natural information" dates to 2013, the concept is coincident with the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), whose third objective is "access to genetic resources" and "fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising [from their] utilization" (ABS). Application of the economics of information to genetic resources justifies rents, homologous to intellectual property. "Bounded openness over natural information" is the proposed modality for the Global Multilateral Benefit-Sharing Mechanism of the 2010 Nagoya Protocol and could become the principal means to transition to half-Earth. The 2021 Note on "Digital Sequence Information on Genetic Resources" by the Executive Secretary of the CBD breaks the taboo on "natural information", which had long prevented vetting the relevant economics. Consilience of disparate fields provides clarity on both provenance and prospects.

Consilience of biodiversity and climate change is achievable through reduction to non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Subsequent construction supports a policy to decrease carbon emissions and species loss in capital-poor countries that are mega-diverse and carbon-rich. Incentives for conservation underpinned The Yasuní-ITT Initiative, whereby Ecuador sought payment not to drill for oil. The same logic holds for not opening highways in the Amazon. Consilience marries Living within Limits by Garrett Hardin with Half-Earth by E.O. Wilson. Artificial Intelligence facilitates persuasion of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

Economics provides powerful abstraction. To deploy that power the object of resource allocation must be correctly identified. The 1992 United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the 2010 Nagoya Protocol (NP) define “genetic resources” as “material” despite being immaterial. The error has generated unresolved and contentious issues surrounding access and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from utilization (ABS). A correct classification of the object as “natural information” invites “the economics of information” with radically different implications for policy: bounded openness, tracking utilization through disclosure in patents and royalties shared proportional to habitat among “countries of origin.” Human pathogens are a peculiar case of applying the same economics of information where the overarching objective is inverted: in situ eradication rather than in situ conservation. Because time translates into lives, incentives must be institutionalized for speedy entry of samples into the international medical research stream with sharing in benefits for utilization on a nuanced first-to-submit principle. As such the benefits would be greatest for just one country of origin which could then determine incentives within its scientific community. Researchers who have published work on pathogens in the first year of the NP (2011) were surveyed. The results support the application of the economics of information to ABS policy.