Bioprospecting and Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) from Protected Areas (PAs): Scope and Challenges

Globally rich biodiversity spots are deteriorating fast due to multiple factors, including anthropogenic reasons. For overcoming these challenges, one of the strategies countries have identified, is the declaration of biodiversity hotspots as “Protected Areas” (PAs) and managing it with stringent legal and institutional measures through restricting or prohibiting public activities therein. Hence, natural resources’ extraction from these areas became impossible or extremely limited. In certain cases, local and indigenous communities, traditionally having entitlement on resources, may avail some exemptions. However, this concept on PAs’ management should be re-examined, particularly in the post Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) era, especially after the emergence of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit sharing (ABS). The argument is, since the biological or genetic resources are renewable natural resources, their extraction below or within their regeneration capacity may not be a constraint, but an opportunity to the bio-prospectors to develop different consumer products (including life saving medicines) for enhancing human welfare. Besides, ABS acts as a sustainable financial source for PAs’ management. Hence, ABS from PAs can promise a win–win situation to the Government (PA managers) and bio-prospectors or biological resources’ band industrialists. In India too, PA plays a significant role in its biodiversity conservation. India is having an Area of 9.17 lakhs Sq. Km. under PA, which comes to around 27% of the country’s total geographical area. India is one of the countries, which have taken measures for the effective implementation of the Nagoya Protocol on ABS, Programme of Work on Protected Areas and Aichi Biodiversity Targets. In this context, this chapter substantiates the need for formal legalised requirements towards accessing the biological resources from the PAs, without compromising its larger goals, based on global and Indian experiences with the help of available literature and the insights that emerged from the interviews carried out with experts who are working on different kinds of PAs and ABS.