CMPA Project provides support to the realisation of People's Biodiversity Registers in Gujarat

04 Jul, 2017

In line with its support to the participatory management of biodiversity in coastal areas, and in collaboration with the Gujarat Ecological Education and Research (GEER) Foundation, the CMPA Project organised a workshop on "Methods and practices of documenting coastal and marine biodiversity in Gujarat through the People’s Biodiversity Registers (PBRs)”. The workshop was held in Jamnagar, Gujarat, and saw the participation of 16 experts representing the State Biodiverse Board, various research institutions and other organisations dealing with the establishment of PBRs in Gujarat.

The workshop was to present a systematic overview of the objectives and the current legal framework of the PBR and discuss its implementation. Ample use was made of the participants’ practical experiences with PBR, which provided guidance for the most effective way to accomplish the fairly complex task of obtaining scientifically vetted occurrence records of species and – where applicable – capturing traditional knowledge on the use of such species. A visit to the shore of the Narara Island of Marine National Park, Jamnagar provided participants with hands-on experience of identification and documentation methods of coastal and marine species in the field. The information thus collected was used for a practical exercise on documenting coastal marine biodiversity in the required PBR format.

Resource persons included Dr. Aeshita Mukherjee from the Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) Partnership Project implemented by GIZ, as well as Dr. Adhavan, Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and Dr. Dhiraj Chawda, Marine National Park, Jamnagar as experts on coastal and marine biodiversity.

For more information: Abhinav Mehta (Junior Project Coordinator, GIZ - abhinav.mehta@giz.de), Dr. Neeraj Khera (Senior Advisor, GIZ - neeraj.khera@giz.de)