Law to protect biodiversity hindering research

A law to protect India's flora and fauna from biopiracy has boomeranged, preventing Indian conservationists from collaborating with researchers from around the world.

The rules, brought in to conserve biodiversity, are having the unintended effect of hindering critical research required to conserve the species, say the scientists.

The Biological Diversity Act 2002 and Biological Diversity Rules 2004 regulate biodiversity and conservation research in India.

But they curtail scientific freedom by putting "draconian regulations on the free exchange of specimens for taxonomic research and threatens to strangulate biodiversity research in India with legal as well as bureaucratic control", claim scientists.

"For any international collaboration, I need to take permission from the National Biodiversity Authority. Also under the law, we can't deposit our type specimens in museums abroad though they have bigger specimen collection for better comparison," K Divakaran Prathapan, a professor at Kerala Agriculture University in Thiruvananthapuram told DH.

The case of Indian biodiversity law, however, is not a stray one. Following the adoption of the UN Convention of Biological Diversity by 196 countries, nearly 100 countries had enacted, or are considering, laws that regulate access by scientists to biological material.

"Anticipated benefits from the commercial use of genetic resources have largely been exaggerated and not yet realised. Instead, national regulations created in anticipation of commercial benefits, particularly in countries that are rich in biodiversity, have curtailed biodiversity research by in-country scientists as well as international collaboration," a group of five scholars, including Prathpan and top US botanist Peter Raven, wrote in the latest issue of the journal Science.

More than 170 researchers from 35 countries are co-signatories to the article, lending their voice to the scientific demand of reviewing the rules that prohibit freedom in research.

Scientists from four Indian institutes, including IISc, are on the list.

Of the estimated 12 million species (excluding bacteria) living on earth, fewer than 2 million have been named.

Current estimates are that 20% of the species on earth are in danger of extinction, driven primarily by a range of human activities.

"If the purpose of CBD is conservation of species then freedom in scientific research should be promoted," said Priyadarsanan Dharmarajan, a senior fellow at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment and one of the co-authors of the article.

"Biodiversity research has seemingly become suspect in the minds of regulatory bodies, owing to fear that a taxonomic discovery might conceivably translate into a commercial development in the future. Meanwhile, biodiversity is vanishing and scarce talent is walking away from research," Dharmarajan said.

National legislation varies greatly, from being extremely prohibitive of research to a very few that are relatively enabling, such as Costa Rica and South Africa.

CBD inspired many nations to entertain unrealistic expectations regarding the commercial value of their native species, the scientists wrote.