Industrial Sector Wise Analysis of Bio-Prospecting in Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) Perspective

Apart from the innumerable services provided by biodiversity or ecosystems to humanity, it also ensures a number of goods including biological or genetic resources. These goods or resources are the fundamental sources (raw materials) for different industries to manufacture various consumer products, which enhance the economy on one hand and satisfy man’s needs, supplying medicines and food for people on the other. Along with these goods, the biodiversity associated Traditional Knowledge (TK) lying with the local and indigenous communities also plays a significant role in products manufacturing as it smoothens, or saves the time and money in bio-surveys and bio-prospecting. From time immemorial, bio-prospectors utilised biological resources and their associated TK for developing products as free goods on an informal basis and acquired huge benefit or profit. However, after the advent of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS), a transformation of biodiversity from the global public good to the sovereign right of the nation occurred. Accordingly, countries have designed separate legal norms and institutional structures for the formal access of biological resources for commercial purpose and the principle of benefit sharing emerged. Biological resources based industries are using resources including: plants, animals and microorganisms and the genetic materials from different ecosystems (forests, agriculture, freshwater and marine / ocean). However, there are fundamental differences among the industries’ approach and dependence on biodiversity, especially: type of resources accessed, source and method of collection, quality or volume of resources used as raw-materials in production, application of biotechnology, nature of research and development, dependency on biological resources associated TK, nature and volume of production, spectrum of market, cost benefit ratio etc. In this context, a sectoral analysis of bio-prospecting is instrumental in designing and implementing effective ABS policies.