The Biological Diversity Act 2002


Biological Diversity Act, 2002 came into existence much later than the other existing laws on environment such as the Indian Forest Act, 1927 , Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 , Environment Protection Act, 1986 etc. Though all these legislations laid impetus on the conservation of the environment, yet none of them properly addressed the issue of bio piracy.The Biological Diversity Act of 2002 aimed at:

• Conservation of Biological diversity

• Sustainable use of its components

• Fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of utilization of genetic resources.


Apart from these main objectives the Act has also given force to some of the terms of CBD by the following provisions:

• The Biological Diversity Act of 2002 and the Biological Diversity Rules, 2004 are implemented by National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) at the national level, State Biological Board (SBB) at state level and Biodiversity Management Committees (BMC’s) at local levels.

• The NBA deals with the requests for access to the biological resources as well as transfer of information of traditional knowledge to foreign nationals, institutions and companies. Through this way piracy of Intellectual Property Rights in and around India is prevented, it also saves the indigenous people from exploitation.

• The recent developments relating to NBA implementation include the establishment of designated National Repository (DNR) under Section 39 as an important aspect of infrastructure for biodiversity conservation. This DNR provides service providers for preserved specimen consisting all faun, herbarium (dried plant material for research), living cells, genomes of organisms and information relating to hereditary and function of biological system.