The Biological Diversity Act 2002

In one line

The Biological Diversity Act 2002 gives effect to the Convention on Biological Diversity by requiring foreign persons to obtain approval before taking Indian biological resources, and by requiring the benefits to be shared with the communities the resources came from.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Biological Diversity Act 2002 was enacted to give effect to the Convention on Biological Diversity 1992 and to its third objective, the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources. It establishes a three-tier structure: the National Biodiversity Authority under section 8, State Biodiversity Boards under section 22, and Biodiversity Management Committees at the level of every local body under section 41. Section 3 requires the approval of the National Biodiversity Authority before a specified person obtains an Indian biological resource, section 6 requires approval before applying for an intellectual property right based on such a resource, and section 21 requires the Authority to secure fair and equitable benefit sharing.

Why it exists

The Convention on Biological Diversity affirmed that States have sovereign rights over their own biological resources and set as its third objective the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources. Its article 8(j) requires each party, subject to its national legislation, to respect, preserve and maintain the knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant to conservation and sustainable use, to promote their wider application with the approval and involvement of the holders, and to encourage equitable sharing of the benefits.

A treaty obligation of that kind requires domestic machinery. Somebody has to decide who may take a resource, on what terms, and who receives the share. The Act creates that machinery.

And there was a practical trigger. The grant abroad of patents on properties of plants long used in India, and the cost of having them revoked, made the case for a domestic gatekeeper.

The gate

Section 3. No person referred to in section 3(2) shall, without the previous approval of the National Biodiversity Authority, obtain any biological resource occurring in India or knowledge associated with it, for research, for commercial utilisation, or for bio-survey and bio-utilisation. Section 3(2) lists the persons to whom the requirement applies, being persons who are not citizens of India, non-resident citizens, and bodies corporate, associations or organisations not incorporated or registered in India or having non-Indian participation in share capital or management.

Section 7 deals with everybody else. A person other than one covered by section 3(2) must give prior intimation to the concerned State Biodiversity Board before accessing a biological resource and its associated knowledge for commercial utilisation, and the Board may prohibit or restrict the activity. Its proviso, as amended, excludes codified traditional knowledge, cultivated medicinal plants and their products, local people and communities including growers and cultivators, and vaids, hakims and registered practitioners of Indian systems of medicine practising for sustenance and livelihood.