04 Nov, 2019
As part of the Indo-German Biodiversity Programme, the Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) Partnership Project of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, an interactive workshop for students of environmental science and technology, ICFAI Law School, Dehradun was conducted on 4th November 2019 by GIZ. The main purpose of the workshop was to make the students aware about the importance of biodiversity and its conservation as well as the Biodiversity Act 2002. It also aimed to develop their capacity regarding the role of technology in biodiversity conservation and Access and Benefit Sharing (as provided in the Biological Diversity Act, 2002).
Two main sessions were conducted on biodiversity and ecosystem services and introduction to Biodiversity Act 2002 and ABS. The half day workshop was attended by 37 students and faculty members.
The event began with a welcome by Dr. Tapan Mandal, Associate Professor, ICFAI School of Sciences. Dr. Pradeep Mehta, Technical Expert GIZ gave a brief overview about GIZ and its projects (globally, nationally and in the state). Using participatory and interactive methods he explained the concepts of biodiversity and ecosystem services to sensitise the students about the importance and role of biodiversity conservation. Giving the example of bees and tiger, he spoke about the significance of single species.
In the second session Mr. Anil Joshi, Technical Expert GIZ gave a brief history of the Convention of Biodiversity and how and why the BD Act 2002 was promulgated. He explained how the act is being implemented with the help of a three-tier system – National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) at the centre; State Biodiversity Board (SBB) at the state level and Biodiversity Management Committee (BMC) at the village level. Mechanism of ABS and compliance of bioresource based companies.
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Dr. Mandal addressing the students
He also explained the provision of equitable sharing of benefits and how the ABS money is ploughed back to the community for conservation of bioresources. This was followed by a film on ABS.
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Students being briefed about BD Act & ABS
In the end there was a Q&A session, in which the students and faculty asked various questions related to the act and ABS. The queries were answered by both the technical experts. One of the main questions was on the use of technology in conservation and the prospects of tech students in the environment sector. The students were told how digitalisation is playing a crucial role in environment and conservation sector for data collection i.e., use of mobile application, GIS mapping, digitalisation of PBRs, traceability, compilation of data, analysis of data, etc.
At the end of the workshop, a vote of thanks was given by Dr. Mandal ICFAI school in which he thanked GIZ and UBB for conducting the workshop.
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