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Karnataka Biodiversity Board embarks on creation of Ecological Biodiversity Registry to halt loss of plant resources
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Nandita Vijay, Bengaluru
April 27 , 2015
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Karnataka Biodiversity Board has now embarked on the creation of an
Ecological Biodiversity Registry to create data base of the plants from
agriculture, wet, dry land and marine sources. The initiative would help
to halt the loss of biodiversity in the state. It would also ensure
protection and conservation of biological, ecological and genetic
diversity.
The state is known for its rich flora of not just
medicinal plants but has a plethora of leafy and flowering plant wealth.
A registry is seen as a repository of knowledge and a mechanism to
promote, protect and preserve traditional knowledge, which could have
wider application with equitable sharing of the benefits. “This ensues
the much awaited Access to Biological Resources and Benefit Sharing
mandated in the Biodiversity Act,” RK Singh, APCCF and member secretary,
Karnataka Biodiversity Board told Pharmabiz.
The Board has
created a format to document the plant species in each jurisdiction of
the 30 states. The objective is to conserve the biodiversity which is
facing significant threats to the state plant species which are driven
by habitat degradation, climate change, invasive species,
overexploitation and pollution. To this effect, it created a pool of 800
human resources for the documentation of the Ecological Biodiversity
Registry workforce.
Currently in Karnataka, the Foundation of
Revitalization of Local Health Tradition (FRLHT), a nongovernmental
organization has created a medicinal plant registry. “However, our
Ecological Biodiversity Registry is a far more compressive data base,”
he said.
Another effort by the Board is to constitute a
Biodiversity Management Committee. It has created 4,500 committees
manned by seven members each. This would provide an awareness about the
local plants.
The management and sustainable utilization of bio
resources within each jurisdiction of the 30 districts in the state
would help to stall illegal and irregular harvesting of bio resources
within its jurisdiction. The data could be furnishing to National
Biodiversity Authority. It would also enable levying charges as directed
by National Biodiversity Authority where a fee would be collected to
access and collect bio-resources for commercial purpose within its
jurisdiction.
Biodiversity Management Committee would help
maintain data about the local vaidyas and practitioners using the
biological resources. It would also maintain register giving information
about the details of access of biological resources and traditional
knowledge granted, details of collection fee imposed and details of
benefits derived and mode of their sharing. In addition, the Committee
will also be involved in documentation of biodiversity and associated
traditional knowledge.
Further, the Karnataka Diversity Board has
also given the herbal industry in the state time till the end of the
month to compliance to the Access to Biological Resources and Benefit
Sharing, said Singh.
India has around 9,500 registered herbal
units and a multitude of unregistered cottage-level herbal units depend
upon the continuous supply of medicinal plants for manufacture of herbal
medical formulations based on Indian Systems of Medicine. Karnataka has
215 Ayurveda units, 10 Homoeopathy and 2 Unani units.
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