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The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has disbursed Rs 2.82 crore under the Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) mechanism arising from the commercial use of India's biological resources.
Of this, Rs 2.80 crore went to 27 State Biodiversity Boards and 3 Union Territory Biodiversity Councils, and Rs 2.01 lakh to the ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Karnataka.
The larger sum came from Rs 2.94 crore paid by M/s Advanta Enterprises Ltd (formerly M/s UPL Limited) for the use of genetic resources behind eight cauliflower hybrids, five hot pepper hybrids, five okra hybrids and six tomato hybrids.
Because the resources had been acquired through a company takeover and could not be traced to identifiable benefit claimers, an NBA Expert Committee devised a modality for distribution, and the money was allocated by the spread of cultivation of those crops - Gujarat (Rs 44.59 lakh), West Bengal (Rs 41.24 lakh) and Madhya Pradesh (Rs 32.73 lakh) receiving the largest shares.
The total ABS amount released by the NBA so far stands at Rs 185 crore (USD 19.34 million).
ABS is the principle that a country's biological resources and the traditional knowledge attached to them are not free goods. A company that takes an Indian plant variety, microbe or extract and turns it into a commercial product must obtain approval and share a portion of the resulting benefit - money, technology or royalties - with the people and places the resource came from. The idea is sovereign rights over genetic resources, established by the Convention on Biological Diversity and operationalised by the Nagoya Protocol; India gave it domestic force through the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. What makes this particular disbursement instructive is the difficulty it exposes. ABS assumes a 'benefit claimer' can be identified - a farming community that conserved a landrace, a village that holds the traditional knowledge. Here the genetic material behind the vegetable hybrids reached the company through the acquisition of another company, several transactions removed from any field, so no individual farmer, community or geographic source could be traced. Rather than let the money sit undistributed, the NBA had an Expert Committee design a modality and then allocated the funds across states in proportion to where those crops are actually cultivated - a proxy for the communities that maintained the resource base. The second stream shows the simpler case: where the resource came from a public research institution, a fixed 30% goes to that institution, and the remainder is applied under Section 27 of the Act.
Simple Analogy: It is a royalty payment where the composer's name has been lost. You cannot pay the individual, so you distribute the money among the places the music actually came from.
India's framework legislation for conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits from biological resources. It creates the three-tier structure - the National Biodiversity Authority at the Centre, State Biodiversity Boards in the states, and Biodiversity Management Committees at the level of every local body - and it is the Act under which every rupee in this disbursement was collected and released.
Governs the National Biodiversity Fund and the application of amounts received by the NBA, including the portion of an ABS receipt not passed on to an identified claimant - the provision expressly cited for the residual 70% of the microbial-strain payment.
Requires every local body to constitute a Biodiversity Management Committee to promote conservation, sustainable use and documentation of biological diversity. A BMC has a chairperson and not more than six nominated members, and it is the body that maintains the People's Biodiversity Register - one of the permitted uses of these funds.
Signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992; establishes conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use of its components, and fair and equitable sharing of benefits from genetic resources as its three objectives. It is the parent instrument for everything below it.
Adopted in 2010 under the CBD and in force from 12 October 2014, it sets the international rules for access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from their use. India's ABS machinery is the domestic expression of these obligations.
Adopted by 196 countries at CBD COP15 in Montreal on 19 December 2022, with four goals for 2050 and 23 targets for 2030. Target 13, which the release cites, calls for effective measures to ensure fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources and of digital sequence information on genetic resources.
The statutory body established in 2003 under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 to implement the Act. It performs regulatory, facilitative and advisory functions for the Government of India, decides on access requests by foreign entities and non-Indian companies, and collects and distributes ABS payments. It has released Rs 185 crore in ABS so far.
The state tier of the Act, advising state governments on conservation, sustainable use and benefit-sharing, and regulating access by Indian entities. Twenty-seven SBBs and three UTBCs received funds in this disbursement.
The local tier, constituted by every local body under Section 41 of the Act, with a chairperson and up to six nominated members. BMCs promote conservation and sustainable use locally and maintain the People's Biodiversity Register documenting local biological resources and associated traditional knowledge. Their capacity building is one of the permitted uses of the released funds.
The ICAR institute at Bengaluru, Karnataka, from which the two biocontrol microbial strains - Pseudomonas fluorescens IIHR-Pf-2 and Trichoderma harzianum IIHR-Th-2 - were sourced. It receives Rs 2.01 lakh, being 30% of that ABS amount, to be used within a year on repository maintenance, research and biodiversity survey, taxonomy and conservation capacity building, and in-situ and ex-situ conservation of the resources and their wild relatives.
| Aspect | Vegetable hybrids stream | Microbial strains stream |
|---|---|---|
| Payer | M/s Advanta Enterprises Ltd (formerly M/s UPL Limited) | M/s Sumitomo Chemical India Ltd, Mumbai (formerly M/s Excel Crop Care) |
| Amount received by NBA | Rs 2.94 crore | Rs 7.15 lakh |
| Resource accessed | Genetic resources behind 8 cauliflower, 5 hot pepper, 5 okra and 6 tomato hybrids | Pseudomonas fluorescens IIHR-Pf-2 and Trichoderma harzianum IIHR-Th-2 |
| Source traceable? | No - accessed through acquisition of another company, no identifiable benefit claimer | Yes - a public research institution, ICAR-IIHR |
| Distribution rule | Modality recommended by an NBA Expert Committee and approved by the Authority; allocated by spread of cultivation across states | 30% to the source institution; the remainder applied under Section 27 of the Act |
| Amount disbursed | Rs 2.80 crore to 27 SBBs and 3 UTBCs | Rs 2.01 lakh to ICAR-IIHR |
India's ABS regime grew out of a history of contested foreign patents on Indian biological material; the Act's approval requirement is designed so that commercial access is documented and priced rather than silent.
Target 13 of the KMGBF explicitly extends benefit-sharing to digital sequence information - genetic data rather than physical samples - which is the live frontier of ABS negotiation, since a sequence can be used without the resource ever leaving the country.
The PBR maintained by each BMC is the documentary basis on which a community can later claim benefits; funding PBR documentation is therefore not administrative housekeeping but the precondition for future ABS claims.
A designation under the Biological Diversity Act for areas of high biodiversity value notified by state governments; strengthening them is among the permitted uses of these funds.
Trichoderma harzianum and Pseudomonas fluorescens are biological control agents used against crop pathogens - an example of biological resources with direct agricultural commercial value, which is what triggers an ABS payment.
GS Paper 3 > Environment > Conservation and Biodiversity; GS Paper 2 > Statutory Bodies
General Awareness > Environment and Acts
General Awareness > Environment
Which of the following statements is/are correct? Proper design and effective implementation of UN-REDD+ Programme can significantly contribute to 1. protection of biodiversity 2. resilience of forest ecosystems 3. poverty reduction Select the correct answer using the code given below.
Answer: 1, 2 and 3
Consider the following statements: 1. Most of the world's coral reefs are in tropical waters. 2. More than one-third of the world's coral reefs are located in the territories of Australia, Indonesia and Philippines. 3. Coral reefs host far more number of animal phyla than those hosted by tropical rainforests. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer: 1, 2 and 3
Which one of the following National Parks lies completely in the temperate alpine zone?
Answer: Valley of Flowers National Park
The "Miyawaki method" is well known for the:
Answer: Creation of mini forests in urban areas
The Biological Diversity Act, NBA and the CBD-Nagoya-KMGBF chain are recurring UPSC Prelims environment topics, and ABS is the angle most often missed.
The requirement that benefits from commercial use of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge be shared fairly with the source country and its communities.
Statutory body established in 2003 under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002; headquartered at Chennai.
The local-body tier under Section 41 of the Act - a chairperson and up to six nominated members - which maintains the People's Biodiversity Register.
The local record of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge maintained by a BMC.
The 2010 protocol under the CBD on access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing; in force from 12 October 2014.
Adopted at CBD COP15, Montreal, on 19 December 2022, with 4 goals for 2050 and 23 targets for 2030; Target 13 covers benefit-sharing from genetic resources and digital sequence information.
An area of high biodiversity value notified by a state government under the Biological Diversity Act.
The conserver of a biological resource or holder of associated traditional knowledge who is entitled to a share of ABS benefits.