Hit by a triple blow of geophysics, technology and legislation, the hallowed and immutable conception of the sea is shattered, and all the while the tangible barriers that mankind saw as the conditions of its eternal stability collapse. But therein lies the result: new El Doradoes are born, whetting the appetites of certain states and institutions.
Broadening the concept of an El Dorado
The classic ways in which the sea’s resources have been harvested—fishing, hunting, mining—have been joined by others since, notably maritime trade (whose containerisation has multiplied its progression tenfold) and large infrastructural projects required by the knowledge economy (e.g. the laying of fibre-optic cables through the North-West and North-East passages). Yet one of the most iconic marine El Doradoes of our time concerns the patenting of molecules. Some recently discovered molecules were extracted from marine organisms that are soft, fragile and slow, and therefore incapable of survival without an invisible form of chemical protection. Trabectedin, for example, an anti-tumour drug extracted from a sea squirt (Ecteinascidia turbinate), was synthesized and subsequently licensed for use in 2007. Most of these molecules are, however, both extremely rare (yields of less than a gram, or sometimes of barely a few milligrams, per tonne of marine organism) and complex, which makes them very hard to synthesize. Besides these molecules used for the pharmaceutical treatment of serious illnesses, algae are also used massively by the cosmetics industry, and are one of the most promising resources the sea has to offer.
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