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What is the Biodiversity Act? What changes has the Lok Sabha cleared in the law?

Current Context:

• The Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on July 25, bringing in a number of changes to the over 20-year old Biological Diversity Act of 2002.
• Lok Sabha on Tuesday (July 25) gave its approval to a Bill to amend some provisions of the Biological Diversity Act of 2002. The Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill seeks to address concerns of several central ministries, state governments, researchers, industry, and other stakeholders, regarding the implementation of the 20-year-old law that is meant to preserve the country’s biological diversity and to ensure its sustainable use.
• Among other things, the amendments aim to encourage Indian systems of medicine like Ayurveda, attract more foreign investment in the preservation and commercial utilization of India’s biological resources, and simplify and streamline processes so that it is easy for everyone to comply with its provisions.

What is the biodiversity law, and why does India need one?

• Biological diversity refers to all kinds of life forms — animals, plants and microorganisms — their gene pools, and the ecosystems that they inhabit.
• The 2002 Act was a response to the global need to protect and conserve biological resources, which are under threat due to human activities.
• The extent of the damage was highlighted, much later, in a landmark 2019 report by the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a scientific body similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
• That report issued a stark warning: about 1 million animal and plant species, out of a total of about 8 million, were facing the threat of extinction. About 75 per cent of the Earth’s land surface and 66 per cent of the oceans had been “significantly altered”, it said.
• But efforts to protect biological diversity had begun much earlier. In 1994, countries including India had agreed to a Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an international framework agreement similar to the more famous one on climate change.
• There was a general agreement on three things: (i) that indiscriminate use of biological resources needed to be halted, (ii) that sustainable use of these resources, for their medicinal properties for example, needed to be regulated, and (iii) that people and communities helping in protecting and maintaining these resources needed to be rewarded for their efforts.
• India’s Biological Diversity Act of 2002 was enacted by the government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee with these objectives in mind. It set up a National Biodiversity Authority as a regulatory body, and prescribed the conditions in, and purposes for, which biological resources could be utilized.
• The purposes mainly related to scientific research and commercial use.

So why did the need for amendments to the law arise?

• Over the years, several stakeholders, like those representing the Indian system of medicine, the seed sector, pharmaceutical and other industries, and the research community, have pointed out that some of the provisions of the 2002 law restricted their activities, and thus needed to be modified.
• In addition, countries agreed to the Nagoya Protocol in 2010, an important international agreement under the CBD, that contained an Access and Benefit Sharing mechanism.
• Under this mechanism, biodiversity-rich countries needed to provide access to their biological resources to those wanting to use it for research or commercial reasons, and the user agencies, in turn, were mandated to share the benefits of their use with the local communities.
• This access and benefit-sharing works at both the domestic and the international levels.
• Over the last few years, the government too has been trying to encourage traditional systems of medicine, all of which rely on these biological resources.

What amendments have been proposed in the biodiversity law?

• The Bill passed on Tuesday makes several amendments to the 2002 Act, addressing most of the concerns raised by the practitioners of traditional systems of medicine, the seed sector, and the pharmaceutical industry.
• Certain categories of users of biological resources, like practitioners of Indian systems of medicine, have been exempted from making payments towards the access and benefit-sharing mechanism.
• Companies registered in India and controlled by Indians are now treated as Indian companies, even if they have foreign equity or partnership, thereby reducing the restrictions on them.
• Provisions have been included to speed up the approval process in cases of use of biological resources in scientific research, or for filing of patent applications.

The Biological Diversity Act, 2002:

• The Act was enacted in 2002, it aims at the conservation of biological resources, managing its sustainable use and enabling fair and equitable sharing benefits arising out of the use and knowledge of biological resources with the local communities.

Salient Features of the Act:

The Act prohibits the following activities without the prior approval from the National Biodiversity Authority:-

• Any person or organization (either based in India or not) obtaining any biological resource occurring in India for its research or commercial utilization.
• The transfer of the results of any research relating to any biological resources occurring in, or obtained from, India.
• The claim of any intellectual property rights on any invention based on the research made on the biological resources obtained from India.

The Act envisaged a three-tier structure to regulate the access to biological resources:

• • The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA)
  • The State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs)
  • The Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) (at local level)

• The Act provides these authorities with special funds and a separate budget in order to carry out any research project dealing with the biological natural resources of the country.
• It shall supervise any use of biological resources and the sustainable use of them and shall take control over the financial investments and their return and dispose of those capitals as correct.

Under this Act, the Central Government in consultation with the NBA:

• Shall notify threatened species and prohibit or regulate their collection, rehabilitation and conservation
• Designate institutions as repositories for different categories of biological resources
• The act stipulates all offences under it as cognizable and non-bailable.
• Any grievances related to the determination of benefit sharing or order of the National Biodiversity Authority or a State Biodiversity Board under this Act, shall be taken to the National Green Tribunal (NGT).

The other laws that NGT deals with, include:

• The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974,
• The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Cess Act, 1977,
• The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980,
• The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981,
• The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986,
• The Public Liability Insurance Act, 1991.

Exemptions from the Act:

• The Act excludes Indian biological resources that are normally traded as commodities.
• Such exemption holds only so far the biological resources are used as commodities and for no other purpose.
• The Act also excludes traditional uses of Indian biological resources and associated knowledge and when they are used in collaborative research projects between Indian and foreign institutions with the approval of the central government.
• Uses by cultivators and breeds, E.g. farmers, livestock keepers and bee keepers and traditional healers e.g. vaids and hakims are also exempted.