Promoting sustainable forest management practices with equitable practices for sharing with communities is now being recognized as an important national priority, with its articulation under the National Biological Diversity Act, 2002. The Biodiversity Boards have been establishing the Biodiversity Management Committees (BMC) all over the country to bring about management of bio-resources at the Panchayat level.
When the BMCs understand their roles and functions effectively they will have the capacity to regulate the access to the different bio-resources within their boundaries and also fix fair prices for these resources which will be collected by the BMC at the local level. The BMCs thus will work at the grass roots to effectively fulfil and implement the Biological Diversity Act of 2002.
We have worked to set up BMC in 5 panchayats and also supporting the Andhra Pradesh State Biodiversity Board as a Technical Support Group in their efforts to disseminate the experiences of community led efforts in biodiversity conservation.