Unequal distribution of research into marine resources

Corals in West Papua, Indonesia (photo: Lars Hanf, cc 3. Exploration and utilisation of resources from the world's oceans is not equally distributed across the globe. Although many of these resources originate in the Global South, they are mostly being researched by just a few countries from the North. Accordingly, this is also where most of the benefits and profits are flowing to, despite the Convention on Biological Diversity. This was the finding of an analysis of literature from the last 50 years. The study, which was recently published in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), is controversial, as it shows just how colonial the globalised research community still is. The study involved a team of current and former Eawag researchers analysing scientific literature on resources from the world's oceans published over the last 50 years.