UTTARAKHAND BIODIVERSITY BOARD

About Us

Increasing concerns about dwindling biological resources led to the establishment and adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which was negotiated and signed by nations at the ‘Earth Summit’ at Rio de Janeiro in Brazil on June 5, 1992. The CBD came onto force on December 29, 1993 and India became a party to convention on February 18, 1994. At present, there are as many as 196 countries including European Union which are party to this Convention. Basically, there are three principles or ‘pillars’ of this Convention –the Conservation of Biodiversity, Sustainable use of its components and Fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the commercial utilization of biological resources.

India is one of the few mega biodiversity countries of the world. With only 2.4% of the world’s land area, India harbours 7-8% of all recorded species which includes 45000 species of plant and 91,000 species of animals. Taking cognizance of the provisions of the CBD and to manage our biological resources, Government of India enacted the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. Subsequently, the Biological Diversity Rules were notified in 2004. The act is to be implemented through a three tier decentralized mechanism i.e. at the National, State and Local body level. The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has been established at the national level with its headquarters in Chennai (Tamil Nadu). The State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) have been formed at State level and Biodiversity Management Committees (BMC) are being constituted at the level of local bodies.