Environment › Biodiversity governance
Biodiversity and wildlife law in India
India's own biodiversity and wildlife law and the bodies that run it: the Biological Diversity Act and its three tiers, access and benefit sharing, the Wildlife (Protection) Act and its schedules, zoos and animal welfare. Prelims has asked about Biodiversity Management Committees and what Schedule I protection means.
Showing 2 of 5 subjects, those that changed from 16 to 31 July 2026.Show all
Access and benefit sharing
Copy link to Access and benefit sharingPrelims and Mains
The promise of the Act is that anyone who profits from a biological resource pays something back to the place it came from, and the National Biodiversity Authority says those payouts have now crossed ₹200 crore.
- Much of the recent money came from seed companies paying for vegetable seed bought in open markets, where no provider could be identified.
- It was shared out among State Biodiversity Boards and Union Territory Biodiversity Councils by each State's crop area, rather than reaching a community directly.
- Under Section 32(2) of the Act, a board must spend what it receives on conservation, People's Biodiversity Registers, Biodiversity Heritage Sites and community livelihoods.
What changed
5 Sep 2026
22 Jul 2026Update
- The National Biodiversity Authority allocated ₹6.67 crore to eleven cotton growing States from money paid by a company for research access to over 25,000 cotton varieties, where no individual conserver could be traced.
- Its rule for such cases: where the source region can be established, the money goes to State Biodiversity Boards in proportion to the area under the crop, and where it cannot, it stays in the National Biodiversity Fund.
- Cumulative disbursal under access and benefit sharing has crossed ₹153 crore.
PIB, 22 Jul 2026: NBA releases Rs 6.67 crore under Access and Benefit Sharing Mechanism for Biodiversity Conservation and Livelihood Support in 11 cotton-growing States (opens in a new tab) · PIB, 31 Jul 2026: NBA releases over ₹24 Lakh as Benefit Sharing to Farmers, Research Institutions and State Biodiversity Boards (opens in a new tab)
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2023: Biodiversity Management Committees, the Nagoya Protocol and collection fees
National Board for Wildlife
Copy link to National Board for WildlifePrelims and Mains
The National Board for Wildlife is the apex statutory wildlife body under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, chaired by the Prime Minister with the Environment Minister as vice chairperson. Its Standing Committee gives the wildlife clearance that any project inside a protected area needs. Such a project must pass two separate gates: environmental clearance under the Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 2006, and wildlife clearance routed through the State Board for Wildlife.
What changed
30 Jul 2026Update
- The PARIVESH clearance portal now carries a map based tool that measures how close a proposed site lies to protected areas, eco sensitive zones, wetlands and coastal zones.
9 Jul 2026Update
- The 91st Standing Committee meeting took up more than 100 proposals, a conservation strategy for the one horned rhinoceros based on the Rhino DNA Indexing System, and inclusion of the pygmy hog in the Species Recovery Programme.
8 Jul 2026New subject
- Retired forest officers have moved the Delhi High Court, saying the Standing Committee approved more than 97 per cent of proposals to divert or denotify protected land between 2014 and 2026, and that the full Board met in 2025 after a gap of 13 years.