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In a pioneering initiative, the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has announced the disbursement of patent-linked Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) funds totalling 43.22 lakh.
These funds have been generated from Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) applications that have employed Indian biological resources to secure patents and facilitate the commercialisation of innovations, as stated in the release. It marks a significant step in ensuring that benefits derived from innovations based on Indian biological resources are equitably shared, particularly with communities, knowledge holders, and custodians who have conserved these resources for generations. The ABS amount has been disbursed to sixteen State Biodiversity Boards, namely, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal, for onward release to the respective benefit claimers, it said. Major ABS recipients among State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) include the Andhra Pradesh SBB with 20,66,553, the Tamil Nadu SBB with 16,79,482, the Odisha SBB with 2,09,965, the Uttar Pradesh SBB with 91,500, and the Madhya Pradesh SBB with 79,547. The ABS, once transferred to the Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs), will support biodiversity conservation, sustainable resource management, and community-based livelihood strengthening. This may include activities such as creating and updating People's Biodiversity Registers (PBRs), documenting traditional knowledge, and participating in other local conservation initiatives. This milestone reinforces India's commitment to fair and equitable benefit sharing under the Nagoya Protocol, while strengthening grassroots-level biodiversity governance nationwide, the release said. (ANI)
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