The Biodiversity (Amendment) Bill, passed by both Houses of Parliament last week, raises serious concerns about the impact it will have on the cause it claims to promote. The aims and objectives of the bill are to conserve biodiversity and promote sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of biological resources. But it has been pointed out that its provisions will have the opposite effect. Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said that “ease of doing business” and promotion of the AYUSH industry (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy) are the main reasons for bringing in the amendments. Translated into practical measures, these amount to diluting the existing provisions to facilitate commercial exploitation of biological resources. The minister says loss of biological resources is as serious a challenge as climate change, but the bill’s provisions do not show this realisation.
The bill exempts users of codified traditional knowledge and AYUSH practitioners from sharing benefits with local communities. This denies local communities benefits due to them, and goes counter to the bill’s stated aim of ensuring “fair and equitable sharing of benefits.” The bill does not seem to consider local communities and forest dwellers as stakeholders in the matter of biological resources. It is a widely accepted fact that their role is most important when it comes to conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. The existing law, which considered participation and involvement of local communities as essential for conservation of resources, is changing to favour industry. The provisions of the bill can give businesses easier access to biological resources and control over them. ‘Codified traditional knowledge’ has not been defined in the bill and that can create situations where the law will not be able to prevent commercial exploitation of such knowledge. The bill has replaced imprisonment with financial penalties for violation of its provisions, effectively decriminalising the offences under it and reducing their deterrence value.
The existing law, the Biological Diversity Act of 2002, was enacted to meet India’s commitment to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. It had created a system to regulate access to biological resources and traditional knowledge, though there are complaints that the system was not well implemented. The industry was not happy with the bill, and there were many instances of conflict. In 2016, the Uttarakhand Biodiversity Board had found a Baba Ramdev group-owned company violating the Act. The company lost the case in court. It is strange that the bill weakens the cause of biodiversity when there is a stronger need to protect it.