The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Biodiversity register at panchayat level from next year

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 28, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Biodiversity register at panchayat level from next year

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE, DEC. 27 . A village biodiversity register would become operational at the panchayat level under the Biodiversity Conservation Act from January 1, 2005, M. Velayutham, Executive Director, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, has said.

Local Biodiversity Management Committees planned under the Act would involve farmers and local tribal communities in biodiversity conservation by serving as a central storehouse of indigenous knowledge of a particular land type, he said today.

He was here to inaugurate the national seminar, `Conservation of Agro-Biodiversity in India - The Role of Stakeholders' organised by the School of Biosciences, Dr. G.R. Damodaran College of Science.

Machinery set up

An entire machinery had been set up with the National Biodiversity Authority, based in Chennai, State Biodiversity Authorities at State level and Biodiversity Management Committees at the local panchayat levels to involve the local communities not only in preservation but also in the optimum utilisation of biodiversity for economic growth. A National Gene Fund and National Biodiversity Fund were other provisions envisaged.

In addition, the knowledge of local communities on medicinal plants, herbs and farming patterns would be protected by the Plant Varieties Protection and Farmers Rights Act, to be implemented next year.

Sharing benefit

This would be safeguarded through the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) under the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

He said that "prior informed consent" would have to be obtained to use local knowledge and any benefit would also have to be shared with the farmer under the "exchange of material agreement" through royalty payment.

"India is among the 12 biologically rich nations in the world. We will be irreversibly impoverished if we do not conserve this biodiversity" he cautioned.

Awareness required

Though the Acts would lay a basic framework, what was required was education and awareness at the local level. Systematic interventions had been planned for the creation of a conservation-minded society that would ask for the schemes available, he said.

The key stakeholders in the process would be local people who would own these eco system improvement projects supported by the Government departments, academic research institutions and non-Governmental organisations. This development process would take two to three years.

During this period, knowledge and capacity building exercises would be provided through the Krishi Vigyan Kendras and academic university campuses to farmers on programme planning and monitoring and natural resource budgeting.

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