Workshop on Effective Implementation of the Biodiversity Act, 2002 for Nodal officers of Maharashtra

19 Dec, 2018

The Government of Maharashtra published a Gazette Resolution on 14th September 2018 that appointed the Divisional Forest Officers or Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF) as the nodal officers for the implementation of the Biodiversity (BD) Act and its provisions.

In this regard, the Maharashtra State Biodiversity Board in collaboration with GIZ , under the scope of ABS Partnership Project, organised a one-day workshop for “The effective implementation of BD Act, 2002 and its provisions by Nodal officers” at Hotel Radisson Blu, Nagpur on 19 December 2018. The DCF’s from Nagpur, Amravati, Gadchiroli, Yavatmal, Aurangabad and Chandrapur regions of Maharashtra were invited for the event. The sessions at the workshop covered topics such as the genesis of the BD Act, Biodiversity Management Committees, People’s Biodiversity Registers, legal aspects of the BD Act and Access and Benefit Sharing and trade of bio-resources. Eminent speakers like, Dr. K.P Raghuram (Technical officer, National Biodiversity Authority), Dr.Pankaj Joshi (Executive director, Sahjeevan, Gujarat) , Mr. M.K Ramesh (Chair Professor, National Law School of India, Bangalore), Mr. Dhananjay Prasad (Deputy Director, Uttarakhand Biodiversity Board, Dehradun) and Dr. A.K Sharma (HoD, Non-Wood Forest Products, Forest Research Institute, Dehradun), were invited to cover these topics.

The workshop was very interactive where participants engaged in active discussion on the various facets of the BD Act. The knowledge shared by the expert panel was extremely constructive in capacitating the DCF’s in taking up the role of Nodal Officers for effective implementation of BD Act and its provisions for the conservation and sustainable use of Maharashtra’s biodiversity.