Very soon grandma recipes for health ailments could find a place in the local biodiversity registry. To be maintained at the village level, these registries would codify these recipes and other local medical and herbal knowledge beginning next year.
The idea is to capture and record the time-tested knowledge before it evaporates into thin air.
The Union Government recently sanctioned Rs 300 crore for biodiversity initiatives. “Part of these funds would go to building the people’s biodiversity registries,” M. F. Farooqui, Special Secretary in the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, said. The funds would also go to strengthening of State biodiversity boards.
Addressing reporters at the COP-MOP 6 (Convention on Cartagena Protocol) here on Monday, he said the grassroot level administrations would be handheld by the Centre in the codification.
Meanwhile, India has said its signing of the Nagoya-Kaula Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety, proves that it is serious about the issue. Farooqui, however, indicated that ratification of the same by India would take some time.
Of the 164 parties (countries) at Cartagena, only 50 signed the deal and three ratified. “It is a complex issue. We have already shown our intent,” he said.
Replying to a question on how the country is permitting genetic engineering trials (before ratifying the international protocols), he said the country had its own laws. “We will take precautionary measures taking into account those laws. We follow science-based approach,” he said.
On why top countries such as the US had not conformed to the liability deal, Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, Executive Secretary of Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), agreed that very few countries had ratified it so far. “The US did not. But that doesn’t mean that it is not following the rules. They have adopted rules to operate in accordance to CBD. Eventually, all should sign,” he said.