Hyderabad:
The government of India has sanctioned Rs.300 crore for a capacity-building initiative to meet the obligations of access and profit sharing under Nagoya Protocol, a top official said.
Under the initiative, which will become operational next year, the funds would be spent on People's Biodiversity Register (PBR) and on strengthening of state biodiversity boards and National Biodiversity Authority (NBA).
M.F. Farooqui, Special Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), said the Ministry of Finance has approved the initiative.
He was talking to reporters on the sidelines of the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (COP MOP 6), which began in Hyderabad on Monday.
Nagoya Protocol on access and sharing of benefits of biodiversity with local communities was adopted at the meeting held at Nagoya, Japan, two years ago.
Mr Farooqui said India was one of the 51 countries which signed the protocol and was in the process of ratifying it.
Denying that National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) had become dysfunctional, he said India was one of only 10 or 12 countries which had legislation that was broadly in line with what the Nagoya Protocol says.
The NBA has signed 100 specific agreements with local communities on access and benefit sharing of biological resources and traditional knowledge.
The official said the MoEF had sanctioned a new scheme to popularise PBR to ensure people have required kind of training and resources at village level.
Under the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) system created by the MoEF, recipes of Unani, Ayurveda and Siddha have been shared with the United States, the European Union and other countries so that their patent inspectors can check data before considering patent claims.
He pointed out that India despite having 2.4 percent of the land area, accounts for 7 to 8 percent of the world biodiversity and 18 percent population of the human and cattle in the world.
"India as a culture has always respected nature. We have done very well in preserving biodiversity and many villagers are better informed than anyone else," Mr Farooqui added.