The Hindu, March 16, 2015
Kerala may be the first State to have Biodiversity
Management Committees (BMC) in all local self-government institutions,
but most of the committees are not functional and remain only on paper,
mainly due to the lack of awareness about its mandate and
responsibilities.
The Kerala Grama Panchayat Association feels that BMCs in Kerala have largely failed to serve their purpose.
Association
president P.T. Mathew said very few of the committees had taken up
meaningful grassroots-level biodiversity conservation projects. A
majority of the BMCs had failed to exercise their powers and
responsibilities, primarily due to the lack of awareness about their
role, he said.
At a meeting held here recently in
connection with the second National Biodiversity Congress, he said BMC
meetings were seldom convened by local bodies. Mr. Mathew said the
failure to operationalise BMCs had affected the preparation of panchayat
biodiversity registers.
It was in 2012 that the
State government formally declared the constitution of BMCs in all the
978 gram panchayats, 60 municipalities, and five corporations in Kerala.
The committee was chaired by the president of the grama panchayat,
chairperson of the municipality, or Mayor of the Corporation.
The
primary function of the BMC is to maintain a Panchayat Biodiversity
Register (PBR) — a document on local biological resources and associated
traditional knowledge.
Its mandate also includes the
conservation, sustainable use, and documentation of biodiversity and
equitable sharing of benefits arising from its use.
The
BMC is tasked with regulating access to bio-resources for commercial
and research purposes. It has to develop a local biodiversity fund and
devise strategies to conserve local biodiversity. It is also tasked with
initiating proposals for declaring biodiversity heritage sites and
maintaining germplasm bank and seed centres for promoting traditional
plant varieties and animal breeds.
After election
Admitting
that BMCs in Kerala were by and large inactive, KSBB chairman Oommen V.
Oommen said the board would make them operational after the elections
to local bodies this year. Prof. Oommen who had embarked on a contact
programme in seven districts this year said he was dismayed by the lack
of understanding about BMCs' role. “The success stories have been
exceptions rather than the rule,” he said.
Prof.
Oommen said KSBB was planning to join hands with the Kerala Institute of
Local Administration (KILA) for a mass contact programme involving
BMCs. “We will also bring out a green book to highlight the importance
of biodiversity,” he said.
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