India’s First Report on Implementation of the Nagoya Protocol

Recently, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), along with the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), submitted India’s First National Report on the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

• This NR1 submission marks India’s transition from normative compliance to evidence-based reporting, showcasing tangible outcomes in Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) during the period 2017–2025. 
• It also contributes to Target 13 of India’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP), reflecting alignment with global biodiversity goals. 

Key Highlights of the 1st National Report

• Global Leadership in Transparency and Compliance Architecture: India has issued more than 3,500 Internationally Recognised Certificates of Compliance (IRCCs) through the ABS Clearing-House Mechanism, accounting for nearly 60% of the global total.
• • This demonstrates that India has developed one of the most transparent, accountable, and operational access-regulation systems globally.

• Institutional Decentralization and Grassroots Democratization: The establishment of over 2.76 lakh Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) across rural and urban local bodies reflects an unprecedented scale of decentralized environmental governance.
• • These institutions ensure that decision-making regarding biological resources is embedded at the level of villages and Panchayats, thereby democratizing biodiversity governance and recognizing communities as primary stakeholders rather than passive beneficiaries.
• Financial Inclusion through Realized Benefit Sharing: India has mobilized approximately ₹216 crore through Access and Benefit Sharing agreements, of which more than ₹139 crore has been disbursed to benefit claimers, including tribal communities, traditional healers, and local custodians of biodiversity.
• The People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR) Revolution as a Legal Safeguard: The widespread documentation of People’s Biodiversity Registers (PBRs) has created a comprehensive inventory of local biodiversity and associated traditional knowledge systems.
  • These registers function as a defensive legal mechanism against biopiracy and wrongful patent claims, while also establishing community ownership over biological resources and knowledge systems.

About Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS)

• Origin and Legal Status:
  • Supplementary Agreement: The Nagoya Protocol, adopted in 2010 (CBD COP10) and enforced in 2014, is a legally binding supplementary agreement to the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992).
  • Addressing Historical Asymmetry: It was conceptualized to address the historical asymmetry wherein biodiversity-rich developing countries were deprived of benefits arising from the commercial use of their genetic resources.
  • Sovereign Resource Transition: The Protocol institutionalizes a rules-based framework for equitable access and benefit-sharing, transforming biodiversity from an open-access global commons into a regulated sovereign resource.
• Core Objective and Philosophy:
  • Equitable Sharing: It aims to ensure the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources.
  • Sustainable Integration: The framework links biodiversity conservation with sustainable development, justice, and economic equity, ensuring that the value of nature translates into community prosperity.
• Core Operational Pillars: The Protocol ensures transparency, fairness, and accountability through two fundamental instruments:
  • Prior Informed Consent (PIC): Establishes that access to genetic resources requires explicit permission from the provider country, reinforcing sovereign rights over natural resources and ensuring sovereign control.
  • Mutually Agreed Terms (MAT): Ensures that contractual agreements define benefit-sharing arrangements, making transactions legally enforceable and providing legal certainty.
• Comprehensive Benefit-Sharing Mechanisms: The Protocol mandates the sharing of diverse benefits, especially benefiting biodiversity-rich developing nations:
  • Monetary Benefits: Includes royalties, license fees, and profit-sharing.
  • Non-Monetary Benefits: Includes technology transfer, collaborative research, and capacity building.
• Compliance, Monitoring, and Institutional Framework: To ensure cross-border compliance enforcement, the Protocol establishes specialized mechanisms:
  • National Focal Points (NFPs) and Competent National Authorities (CNAs) for domestic administration.
  • ABS Clearing-House: A central platform for information exchange, transparency, and monitoring compliance.
• Protection of Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Community Rights:
  • Indigenous and Local Communities (ILCs): The Protocol recognizes ILCs as custodians of biodiversity and mandates their prior consent and benefit-sharing.
  • Biocultural Rights: This strengthens grassroots participation and protects the intangible knowledge systems of indigenous peoples.
• India’s Implementation Framework: India serves as a global leader by implementing the Protocol through a robust decentralized governance model:
  • Legal Basis: The Biological Diversity Act, 2002.
  • Institutional Structure: Managed by the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) at the apex level and Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) at the local level.
  • It comprises a three-tier institutional structure comprising:
    • National Biodiversity Authority,
    • State Biodiversity Boards/Union Territory Biodiversity Councils, and
    • Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) at local level.

Significance of the Nagoya Protocol

• Economic Justice for Indigenous and Local Communities: The Protocol transforms traditional knowledge from an unrecognized resource into a legally protected economic asset, ensuring that indigenous communities receive royalties and benefits for their contributions.
• • This addresses historical exploitation and promotes distributive justice in biodiversity governance.
• Creation of Economic Incentives for Conservation: By linking economic returns with biodiversity preservation, the ABS mechanism ensures that local communities have a direct financial stake in conservation efforts.
  • This fosters a model where environmental sustainability and economic rationality reinforce each other, reducing destructive practices such as deforestation.
• Standardization of Ethical Global Research Practices: The Protocol provides a clear regulatory framework for global biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, ensuring that research and innovation are conducted within an ethical and legally compliant framework.
  • This reduces legal uncertainty and enhances trust between provider and user countries.

Challenges that need to be Tackled

• The Challenge of Digital Sequence Information (DSI) and Technological Disruption: With advances in biotechnology, genetic material is increasingly digitized as Digital Sequence Information, enabling companies to utilize genetic data without physically accessing biological resources.
  • This creates a significant regulatory gap, as existing ABS frameworks are not fully equipped to capture benefits from digital utilization, potentially undermining the entire benefit-sharing regime.

• Complexities in Identifying Legitimate Benefit Claimers: In many cases, biological resources and traditional knowledge are shared across multiple communities and regions, making it difficult to identify rightful beneficiaries and ensure equitable distribution.
  • This introduces administrative and ethical challenges in operationalizing benefit-sharing.
• Difficulties in Monitoring Value Chains and Global Commercialization: Once a genetic resource is accessed and transformed through multi-stage international value chains, tracing the final product and ensuring royalty payments becomes extremely complex.
  • This highlights the need for stronger global cooperation and monitoring mechanisms.

India’s Earlier Initiatives towards ABS Governance

• Biological Diversity Act, 2002: India was among the first countries to enact a comprehensive domestic law for biodiversity governance, establishing a three-tier institutional structure for regulation and benefit-sharing.
• Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL): The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library has digitized Ayurveda, Unani, and Siddha knowledge systems, preventing misappropriation of traditional knowledge in international patent regimes.
  • This has played a crucial role in combating biopiracy at the global level.
• Recent Legislative Reforms to Balance Regulation and Innovation: The Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023, aims to simplify compliance requirements, particularly for Indian researchers and AYUSH industries, while retaining safeguards against misuse.
  • This reflects an attempt to balance conservation with economic and research imperatives.

Related Global Initiatives and Actions

• Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework: The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022) sets ambitious targets such as protecting 30 percent of global land and marine areas by 2030, with ABS serving as a key financial mechanism for conservation.
• Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement (BBNJ Agreement): The BBNJ (Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction) Agreement extends ABS principles to marine genetic resources in the high seas, reflecting a growing recognition of shared global ecological assets.
• Emerging Global Health Governance through WHO’s Pandemic Accord: Negotiations under the WHO Pandemic Accord aim to ensure that countries sharing biological samples receive equitable access to vaccines and technologies, extending ABS principles into global health governance.

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Way Forward

• Developing a Global Mechanism for Digital Sequence Information: India must play a proactive role in shaping a multilateral benefit-sharing framework for digital genetic data, ensuring that technological advancements do not bypass equity principles.
• Leveraging Technology for Transparent and Automated Compliance: The integration of blockchain-based smart contracts and digital tracking systems can enhance traceability and ensure automatic royalty payments, strengthening the ABS framework.
• Empowering Local Institutions through Capacity and Legal Literacy: Beyond institutional creation, there is a need to build the legal, technical, and negotiation capacity of Biodiversity Management Committees, enabling communities to engage effectively with corporate and research entities.
• Strengthening International Legal and Monitoring Frameworks: Enhanced global cooperation, harmonized regulations, and stronger enforcement mechanisms are essential to address transboundary challenges such as biopiracy and value chain opacity.

Conclusion

India’s First National Report goes beyond compliance, asserting sovereign control over biological resources through strong legal and institutional frameworks. By operationalizing the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing, India offers a replicable model integrating conservation, equity, and development, while emphasizing traditional knowledge, fair benefit-sharing, and technological adaptation.

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