The amendments have reduced the scope of access and benefit sharing and new thinking is needed ensure that communities are not sidelined
Representative photo from iStock The Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill is now cleared by both Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. The new Act, which has been named the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023, will come into force after the Centre notifies it in the official gazette and new rules are prepared.
The new Act amends the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 (BDA) which has remained more or less unimplemented during the 20 years of its existence.
The amendments have been made purportedly to ensure that the provision of United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity of 1992 and Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of the Benefits Arising from their Utilization of 2010 are met with.
CBD prescribes that each member country should take steps to conserve biodiversity, use it sustainably and ensure that there is equitable sharing of benefits that arise from the use of biodiversity. The Nagoya Protocol expands the scope of the benefit sharing under the Convention.
However, the scope of benefit sharing has been reduced through the amendments. For example, the amendments open up access to a large extent. Exemptions have been set for codified traditional knowledge as prescribed in the first schedule of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940 which means that the industries using this knowledge do not have to share benefits. Also, industry does not have to share benefits if the raw material is from cultivated sources.
The AYUSH industry is not small by any means — a report by Forum on Indian Traditional Medicine under Research and Information System for Developing Countries, puts down the market size of the industry to be around $18.1 billion in 2020. The amendments have also opened up the industry to foreign investment so market size is likely to increase.
It is not clear where the benefits that can be shared with the community as per the Nagoya Protocol would now come from after the amendments. Sharing of biodiversity for research and patents does not usually yield revenues.
One source of funds for the community could be the penalty paid by violators of the Act. The Amendments have decriminalised the offences and made them punishable with a penalty which could range from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1 crore depending on the severeness of the violation.
The other sources could be the food industry and the cosmetic industry. Proprietary herbal drug industry could also be a source as could be the modern pharma industry.
Access and benefit sharing (ABS) agreements on traditional knowledge could also add on to the kitty but even globally, there are very few examples of benefit sharing on traditional knowledge and the contract on rooibos tea is a rare example.
The amendments suggest that ABS funds would be used for biodiversity conservation if exact beneficiaries are not identified but this amount is not likely to be much as few people would be sharing the benefits.
Biodiversity conservation and sustainable use already faces extreme shortage of funds. The Union budget set out the total amount for Conservation of Natural Resources and Ecosystems for the year 2023-2024 as Rs 47 crore. This is lower than the Rs 58.50 crore provided for the purpose during 2022-2023. The allocation to National Biodiversity Authority too has gone down from Rs 17.5 crore in 2022-2023 to Rs 16.40 crore for the year 2023-2024.
In light of the amendments, discussions on funds are needed urgently.
Shortage of funds for biodiversity is a global phenomenon. In December 2022, when the world agreed upon the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) at the conference of parties (COP15) in Montreal, countries agreed to mobilise at least $200 billion per year for the purpose.
The finances to fund GBF are handled by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the recent GEF governing board meeting revealed that the total of only around $1.4 billion is available with the Facility and only around 50 per cent of this would be available for biodiversity.
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