Biodiversity Amendment Act, 2023: A Catalyst to Safeguard India’s Indigenous Resources

The Bio-Diversity Act, is a 20-year-old law that is meant to preserve the country’s biological diversity and to ensure its sustainable consumption. Biodiversity encompasses a wide variety of life forms that live on the planet. The Convention on Biological Diversity called for two protocols namely, Cartagena Protocol on biosafety (2003), and Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing (2014). The Cartagena Protocol was ratified by India in 2003 and the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 was passed by Parliament. The Act confines the access to biological resources and related traditional knowledge. The present article aims to examine the evolution of Bio Diversity Act in 2002 and series of amendments, of which the latest was the Biodiversity Bill,2023 Biological Diversity Act (BDA), 2002 was amended as the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023. Basically, originated from the United Nations Convention of Biological that India signed at Rio de Janeiro. The Act was intended to safeguard India's diverse biological resources, ensuring their conservation and sustainable utilization. the Biodiversity Act was further strengthened to streamline access to the resources. This enables the Indian biodiversity to enhance its potential in sectors like agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and biopharmaceuticals. potentially propelling India towards its ambitious $300 billion bioeconomy target by 2030. These changes also simplify processes, and also ensure the conservation of biological resources, sustainable utilisation, targeting the Indian bioeconomy to reach the $300 billion by 2030 as envisaged in the Sustainable Development Goals.