Context: Following directions from a suo motu proceeding by the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) constituted a multi-disciplinary Expert Committee on Invasive Alien Species.
About The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA):
What It Is?
- The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) is an autonomous statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India. It performs regulatory, advisory, and facilitative functions to safeguard India’s biological resources and associated traditional knowledge.
Origin:
- Established: October 1, 2003.
- Statutory Mandate: Formed by the Central Government to implement the provisions of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 (following India’s ratification of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992).
Aim: To ensure the conservation of biological diversity, promote the sustainable use of its components, and secure the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of biological resources (Access and Benefit Sharing – ABS).
Key Functions:
- Advising the Central Government: Provides strategic recommendations to the Union Government on biodiversity conservation, sustainable utilization, and fair benefit-sharing mechanisms.
- Notification of Biodiversity Heritage Sites: Advises state governments on selecting and notifying areas of significant ecological importance as Biodiversity Heritage Sites under Section 37 of the Act.
- Regulation of Intellectual Property & Commercial Access: Regulates and grants prior approvals under Sections 3, 4, and 6 of the Act for foreign individuals or entities seeking access to Indian biological resources, research transfers, or obtaining Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) based on biological material.
- Overseeing Decentralized State Boards (SBBs): Coordinates with 28 State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) that regulate commercial utilization and bio-surveys by Indian citizens within their respective territories.
- Empowering Local Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs): Oversees approximately 2.76 lakh local-level BMCs set up at panchayat and municipal levels, responsible for chronicling local traditional knowledge via People’s Biodiversity Registers (PBR).
- Constituting Expert Committees: Exercises statutory powers to form multi-disciplinary expert panels (such as the newly constituted panel on Invasive Alien Species) to address emergent national ecological risks.
Significance:
- Prevents biopiracy by regulating access to India’s biological resources and ensuring benefits are shared with local communities.
- Supports India’s commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
