India Accounts for 60 Per Cent of Global Biodiversity Compliance Certificates

India has submitted its first national report on the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity secretariat, documenting Rs 216.31 crore mobilised through benefit-sharing approvals between 2017 and 2025 and the establishment of more than 276,653 Biodiversity Management Committees across the country. The report reveals that India accounts for over 60 per cent of all Internationally Recognised Certificates of Compliance issued globally under the access and benefit-sharing framework.

The report, submitted on February 27, 2026 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in collaboration with the National Biodiversity Authority, covers the period from November 2017 to December 2025. It details 12,830 approvals issued under the ABS framework, of which 5,913 were issued by the NBA for foreign entities and 6,917 by state biodiversity boards and Union territory biodiversity councils for Indian companies. India has published 3,556 Internationally Recognised Certificates of Compliance on the global ABS clearinghouse portal. Between 2017 and 2025, Rs 139.69 crore has been disbursed to beneficiaries including local communities, farmers and traditional knowledge holders.

The Nagoya Protocol under the CBD was adopted in 2010 to prevent biopiracy — the use of biological resources and traditional knowledge without compensation — and provides communities with a legal mechanism to receive benefits when companies or researchers use their biological resources. India's ABS framework operates under the Biological Diversity Act, supported by the Biological Diversity Rules 2024 and ABS Regulations 2025. India's active publication of compliance certificates and benefit-sharing volumes positions it among the more diligent implementers globally, though questions persist about the practical functionality of many grassroots biodiversity committees.

An analysis cited in the report found that many People's Biodiversity Registers were prepared too rapidly, raising questions about data quality. In several states, industries using medicinal plants and forest produce reportedly fail to pay benefit-sharing fees despite regulatory requirements. The report highlights 256,393 individuals trained through 3,724 workshops between 2017 and 2025, with over 600 additional capacity-building initiatives organised. A Maharashtra case involving Dapur village — which received Rs 68 lakh after a firm used bacteria from local soil — is cited as an example of ABS benefits reaching communities, though experts note such outcomes remain limited.

Key figure — Rs 216.31 crore mobilised through biodiversity benefit-sharing approvals from 2017 to 2025