Concepts of marine specimen banking.

For more than a decade environmental specimen banking (ESB) has been an established approach for monitoring and retrospective environmental survey purposes in a number of developed countries. Specimen banking is carried out on regional or national scales for various environmental materials. The ecological or problem-oriented approach, as pursued e.g. in Germany or USA has the advantages of a restricted survey and a clear political mandate. Environmental problems, however, are by no means national or regional issues, since the diversity and dispersion of hazardous substances make environmental monitoring clearly a global affair. The structuring of our environment suggests that banking should not be limited by national boundaries, but rather be based on eco-systematic principles. Such distinct banking efforts should be devoted to the monitoring of physico-chemical aspects of climatic change and air pollution, soil quality, and aquatic monitoring on a world-wide scale. As some experience already exists with specialized banking programs for marine samples, such as the National Marine Mammal Tissue Bank or the Mussel Watch Program in the United States, an international marine specimen bank, based on principles of national ESB's, is advocated to be established in due time. Following the recommendations of the 1992 Rio 'Earth Summit' to pursue sustainable development strategies, such an establishment could strongly facilitate efforts concerning pollution control and mitigation, overexploitation and mining of ocean resources on a regional or global scale.