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Down To Earth
|October 16, 2025
The National Biodiversity Authority has disbursed less than 27 per cent of money it received from companies and traders to beneficiary communities since 2008-09
A STATUTORY body created to ensure that local communities get compensated for their traditional knowledge and products by entities that use them for commercial purposes has fallen miserably short of its target. Queries filed by Down To Earth (DTE) under the Right To Information (RTI) Act, 2005, show the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) disbursed less than 27 per cent of funds received from companies, institutions or individuals since 2008-09.
NBA was established in 2003 under the Biological Diversity Act (BDA), 2002, to conserve and enable sustainable use of biodiversity in the country. This is how this happens: Say, a forest-dwelling community specialises in catching snakes and extracting venom, which it sells to companies for research, NBA is responsible for ensuring the community gets adequately paid for its service by the buyer.
Cette histoire est tirée de l'édition October 16, 2025 de Down To Earth.
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