India’s first report on Nagoya Protocol highlights progress in ensuring access & benefit sharing

India has submitted its 1^st national report on the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing (ABS) to detail the country’s progress in regulating access to genetic resources and ensuring fair share of the benefits from their use.

The report was submitted on February 27, 2026 to the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) in collaboration with National Biodiversity Authority. It covers period from November 1, 2017 to December 31, 2025. India had submitted an interim national report in 2017.

The report outlined how the country is regulating access to their biological resources and ensuring that benefits from their commercial or research use are shared fairly with communities that conserve them.

The Nagoya Protocol under the CBD was adopted in 2010 with an aim to prevent the exploitation of biological resources and traditional knowledge without compensation, often called as biopiracy.

For countries like India, which host rich biodiversity and vast traditional knowledge systems, this protocol provides a legal mechanism to ensure that when companies or researchers use biological resources, such as medicine, microbes or crop varieties, the communities that protect them receive a share of the benefits, monetary or non monetary.

So, the report serves as a accountability document showing how countries are implementing ABS and whether local communities are receiving compensation or not.

India’s ABS framework operates under the Biological Diversity Act supported by the Biological Diversity Rules, 2024 and ABS Regulations, 2025. 

The system works through three-tier institutional structure: NBA at the national level, state biodiversity boards (SBB) and Union territory biodiversity (UTB) councils at the state level and biodiversity management committees (BMC) at the village level.

According to the report, India has established more than 276,653 BMCs across the country. These commiittes are responsible for maintaining the Peoples’ Biodiversity Register (PBR) and facilitating benefit sharing arrangements when biological resources are shared from their areas.

But the question is how functional these communities are in practice. Despite the mandate, BMCs and PBRs were not put in place till 2016 and it was only after a petition by Chandra Bhal Singh in NGT that the state government moved on this. By 2020, 265,725 BMCs were established. 

The functioning of BMC is supported by PBRs and by 2020 as many as196,015 PBRs were reported.

A 2022 analysis by Down To Earth found that the quality of many PBRs was questionable due to the speed at which they were prepared.

According to the national report submitted to CBD between 2017 and 2025, India issued 12,830 approvals under the ABS framework. Of these 5,913 approvals by the NBA for entities covered under Section 3 (2) of the Bio Diversity Act, which includes foreign individuals, companies or collaborations with foreign participation. 

These approvals relate to research, bio-survey, commercial utilisation of biological resources, transfer of research results and intellectual property rights. Some 6,917 approvals were issued by SBBs and UTB councils to Indian companies or institutions under Section 7 of the act for commercial utilisation of biological resources.

India has also published 3,556 Internationally Recognised Certificates of Compliance (IRCC) on the global ABS clearing house portal. These certificates confirm that access to biological resources has been granted legally and that benefit sharing arrangements are in place.

According to the report, India accounts for more than 60 per cent of all IRCCs issued globally, highlighting its active participation in implementing compliance mechanisms under the Nagoya Protocol. But the question is what is India doing and others countries aren't?

The report showed that India’s biodiversity is increasingly generating financial returns through the benefit-sharing system.

Between 2017 and 2025 Rs 216.31 crore ($28.04 million) was mobilised through approvals issued by the NBA. Of this, Rs.139.69 crore ($16.83 million) has been disbursed to those claiming benefits.

These beneficiaries include BMCs, local communities, farmers and holders of traditional knowledge. In addition to this, Rs 51.96 crore ($6.56 million) was generated through approvals granted by SBB for commercial utilisation by Indian companies.

Nearly 395 approvals also included non-monetary benefits, such as capacity building, training programmes, technology transfer and collaborative research.

Recent examples also demonstrated that these benefits are reaching communities on ground. A news report by DTE showed that Dapur village in Maharashtra received nearly Rs 68 lakh under the ABS mechanism after a company used soil from village to develop probiotic products. That money is now being planned for local biodiversity conservation activities.

However, such cases are limited and it remains important to ensure more benefits reach tribal groups, forest-dependent people and farmers.

In several states, biodiversity boards have reported that industries using medicinal plants, forest produce or biological materials often fail to pay benefit sharing fees.

India’s regulatory framework monitors the use of foreign-sourced biological resources and associated traditional knowledge.

Under the Biological Diversity Rules, 2024, the NBA received 41 declarations in form 10 related to the utilisation of foreign biological resources. These declarations are required under Rule 18 of the Biological Diversity Rules and Section 36A of the Biological Diversity Act.

The system aims to ensure transparency in research and commercial use of biological materials sourced internationally. The report also highlighted extensive efforts to build awareness and capacity around the ABS framework.

Between 2017 and 2025, 256,393 individuals were trained through 3,724 workshops and programmes. More than 600 additional capacity-building initiatives were organised across the country. These targeted government officials, researchers, local communities, industry stakeholders and members of BMCs.