Knowledge and Experience Sharing Workshop on ABS

28 Jun, 2016

A two day workshop organised under the Access and Benefit Sharing Partnership Project, brought together 35 representatives from the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), the State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs), the Indo-German Biodiversity Programme, and senior officials from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).

Participants at the Knowledge and Experience Sharing workshop organised jointly by GIZ, MoEFCC, and NBA

The workshop held in Chennai from 28-29 June, 2016, marked the initiation for the implementation of the Access and Benefit Partnership project. The ABS Partnership Project aims at strengthening the capacities of the NBA, SBB, Biodiversity Management Committees (BMC), as well as the capacities of the commercial and research user groups of biological resources for the effective implementation of ABS mechanisms under the Biological Diversity Act 2002, in keeping with India's commitments under the Nagoya Protocol on ABS.

Dr. Amita Prasad, Additional Secretary, MoEFCC and Dr. B Meenakumari, Chairperson, National Biodiversity Authority were the guests of honour at the Workshop. During the two days, representatives from 13 SBBs exchanged knowledge and experiences in implementing ABS arrangements in their respective states. They also highlighted their achievements, lesson learnt, ABS practices, success stories and the challenges faced.

In pictures (from left) Dr. B Meenakumari, Chaiperson, National Biodiversity Authority, and Dr. Amita Prasad, Additional Secretary, MoEFCC. (right) Dr. B Meenakumari addressing the participants during the workshop

Addressing the participants, Mr. Edgar Endrukaitis, Director, GIZ, emphasized that good ABS practices, dialogue with stakeholders, strengthening of capacity and development of a monitoring system, will help in better implementation of the Biological Diversity Act.

Dr. Prasad said that fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources is one of the three main objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity and this should be followed at the bottom up approach. Conservation and Sustainable development, the first two objectives should be given the top most priority. Dr. B. Meenakumari stated that India has been a pioneer globally in implementing the ABS mechanism. The Biological Diversity Act is compliant with the provisions of the Nagoya Protocol on ABS.

The ABS partnership programme is being implemented by MoEFCC, NBA, GIZ at the national level and the SBBs of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Uttarkhand at the state level.

The project strategically focuses on the following activity areas:

• Awareness raising, communication and stakeholder dialogues for creating better understanding of the Biological Diversity Act 2002, ABS Guidelines and the Nagoya Protocol amongst different actors and stakeholder groups.
• Development of good practices of benefit sharing with communities, based on utilisation of biological resources for commercial and/or research purposes.
• Development of an ABS monitoring system for the NBA and SBBs to enable effectively monitoring and learning throughout the process flow of ABS.