NBA releases Rs 6.67 crore under Access and Benefit Sharing Mechanism for Biodiversity Conservation and Livelihood Support in 11 cotton-growing States
The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has released Rs 6.67 crore under the Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) mechanism to support biodiversity conservation, sustainable utilisation of biological resources and livelihood enhancement in 11 cotton-growing States. The disbursement demonstrates how benefits derived from the commercial utilisation of biological resources are being reinvested in biodiversity conservation and community welfare under the Biological Diversity Act.
The benefit-sharing amount of Rs 7.62 crore has been realised from M/s Bayer Science & Innovation Pvt. Ltd. (formerly Monsanto Holdings Pvt. Ltd.) for research involving 25,431 cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) varieties. Cotton occupies a unique place in India's agricultural and economic landscape, with the country serving as a global reservoir of cotton genetic diversity that supports nearly 4-5 crore people across the value chain. Since the biological resources were accessed through traders and intermediaries, identifying individual conservers or benefit claimers was not feasible.
To address such situations, the NBA, with the support of an Expert Committee, has developed transparent modalities for the utilisation of ABS amounts. Where the geographical occurrence of a biological resource can be reliably established using published records, the corresponding ABS amount is allocated to the concerned State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) for biodiversity conservation, sustainable utilisation and socio-economic development of the concerned areas. Where the source cannot be established, the funds are retained in the National Biodiversity Fund and utilised in accordance with Section 27 of the Biological Diversity Act for conservation and sustainable use of biological resources across the country.
Applying these modalities, the NBA has allocated Rs 6.67 among eleven cotton-growing States: Maharashtra (Rs 2.41 crore), Gujarat (Rs 1.38 crore), Telangana (Rs 1.06 crore), Karnataka (Rs 0.40 crore), Rajasthan (Rs 0.36 crore), Madhya Pradesh (Rs 0.31 crore), Andhra Pradesh (Rs 0.23 crore), Haryana (Rs 0.23 crore), Odisha (Rs 0.14 crore), Punjab (Rs 0.09 crore) and Tamil Nadu (Rs 0.06 crore). The remaining amount (Rs 0.95 crore) has been earmarked for the NBA as per the Biological Diversity Rules.
The allocation is based on the geographical distribution of cotton cultivation using data from the All India Coordinated Research Project on Cotton (AICRP), ICAR, and is proportional to each State's area under cotton cultivation, ensuring a transparent, scientific and equitable distribution of ABS benefits.
The allocation will support on-farm and ex-situ conservation of biological resources, documentation and updation of People's Biodiversity Registers, ecosystem restoration, strengthening of Biodiversity Heritage Sites, documentation of traditional knowledge, biodiversity research, development of digital biodiversity databases, capacity building of Biodiversity Management Committees, awareness programmes and livelihood enhancement. These investments will help conserve valuable genetic traits for future crop improvement while empowering local communities as custodians of India's agrobiodiversity.
The initiative also establishes a transparent and science-based model for distributing ABS benefits where biological resources are sourced through complex supply chains. By linking benefit-sharing to the verified geographical occurrence of biological resources, it ensures that ABS reaches biodiversity-rich regions even when individual beneficiaries cannot be identified.
With this disbursement, the total ABS funds released by the NBA have reached Rs 152.24 crore. The initiative demonstrates how the ABS mechanism transforms the commercial utilisation of biological resources to combine economy, ecology and equity. It also contributes to the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, particularly Target 13 on the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilisation of genetic resources, while supporting Target 4 on conserving genetic diversity.
The National Biodiversity Authority is a statutory body established under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, functioning under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. It regulates access to India's biological resources and associated knowledge and implements the Nagoya Protocol's principle of fair and equitable sharing of benefits.
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VM/GS