Punjab State Council for Science & Technology

The Punjab Biodiversity Board has been established in the state as a statutory body under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 to conserve and protect the natural ecosystems of the state and its flora and fauna. The Board has been set up in the Department of Environment to ensure that biodiversity in both, wild and cultivated areas is properly protected. The secretariat of Punjab Biodiversity Board (PBB) lies in PSCST. The major functions of the Board include:

i) To implement the provisions of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, in the state.

ii) To regulate the use of State’s biological resources, especially by granting approvals for regulating their commercial utilization and their bio-surveys/ bio-prospecting.

iii) To levy collection fee for these biological resources, wherever these are harvested by business houses and individuals for industrial/ commercial use.

iv) To ensure equitable sharing of benefits arising out of their commercial use with the local communities from where these resources have been accessed/ harvested.

v) To promote biodiversity conservation activities, both in agricultural and wild areas.

vi) To bring to the notice of the National Biodiversity Authority such commercial use of resources by foreigners and NRIs (including intellectual property generated out of these resources).

vii) To facilitate setting up of Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) at village & town level and expert committees at state and district level.

viii) To promote the preparation of People’s Biodiversity Registers (PBRs) through BMCs to document available resources and protect traditional knowledge.

ix) To take up capacity building programs for masses, as well as, training of line departments of the state government.

The PBB was notified in December, 2004 under the chairmanship of Chief Minister, Punjab who was also then Minister for Environment. The Board has been re-notified after completion of three year tenure vide notification no. 2/4/2000/STE (1)2875 dated 8^th August, 2007. The Board initiated its activities in 2005. The following actions have been taken up till date:

(i) Committee to identify biodiversity rich areas and heritage sites outside Protected Area Network (PAN)

- State level essay and poster competition on Biological Diversity was organized for 1700 Eco-club students from schools all over the state.

(iii) ‘State of Environment – Punjab’ in 2005, which discusses the issues of both, wild and

A searchable on-line data base has been developed, which is available on website www.punenvis.nic.in

1. Workshop on ‘Facilitating formation of State Biodiversity Board (SBBs) & Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) in Northern India’ was held on 19 & 20.12.2006. Twenty eight participants from nine states/UTs (Chandigarh, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh & Uttar Pradesh) participated. Member Secretary, National Biodiversity Authority, Additional Director, Ministry of Environment & Forests, Govt. of India participated as experts besides experts from Madhya Pradesh Biodiversity Board & Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

International Biodiversity Day (2006) was celebrated on 22nd May, 2006. The following programmes were taken up:

- Five camps for 50 villages were organized with the help of NGO in Districts Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur and Ropar

- State level essay writing competition on Biological Diversity was organized for 1700 Eco-club students from schools all over the state

- An orientation workshop on Biodiversity was conducted for selected NGOs of Punjab

- A teacher training program was organized on the theme ‘Biodiversity –Nurture Nature for our Future’

3. Four training programs for Master Trainers were organized from Feb. 20 – 23, 2007 to train

teachers from every block of Punjab (two teachers per block) to facilitate constitution of

- “Expert Committee to Identify Biodiversity Rich Areas and Heritage sites in Wild, outside Protected Area Network (PAN) and Cultivated Areas” under the chairmanship of Dr. G.S. Kalkat, Member, Punjab Biodiversity Board.

- “Expert Committee to Identify Commercially Important Flora and Fauna” under the

5. 4000 copies of a bilingual booklet (3000 Punjabi & 1000 English), a bilingual pamphlet and a

poster were published and distributed to NGOs, teachers, eco-clubs and relevant key deptt.'s.

6. Punjab State Biological Diversity Rules were prepared and put up to the Board for approval.

International Biodiversity Day was celebrated by organizing the following activities:

Sr. No.	Activity Programme	No. of Programmes
1.	Awareness lectures, workshops/seminars/ educational visits/ discussions, exhibitions on various environmental issues.	60
2.	Competitions (Essay writing, Chart making, quiz, poetry recitation, debates, GK, songs, etc).	106
3.	Rallies to make people aware about our environment and biodiversity.	20
4.	Cleanliness drives.	16
5.	Socio-religious & cultural programmes.	01
6.	Plantation of local tree species.	12
Total programmes		215

The total number of organizations which participated in the activities include :

The activity is expected to increase the level of awareness and concern of biodiversity issues amongst children and general public.

2. The Second meeting of Punjab Biodiversity Board was held on 10^th March, 2008 under the chairmanship of Sh. Bikram Singh Majithia, Minister, Environment, Govt. of Punjab. The Board members were informed about various activities of PBB.

3. PBB has also organized 15 village field camps and 3 major camps in District Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur with the help of Master Trainers, NGOs, Education Deptt and Forest Deptt. Meetings were held with local representatives to motivate them to constitute BMCs. As a result, 31 BMCs have been set up (13 BMCs in district Gurdaspur and 18 BMCs in District Hoshiarpur)

4. Two teacher training programs were organized with the help of District Science Supervisors of Districts Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur on 18^th and 19^th September, 2007. About 25 teachers from district Gurdaspur and 40 teachers from Hoshiarpur were provided information on Biological Diversity Act and Rules.

5.. The Punjab Biodiversity Board has developed an educational kit ‘Capacity Building for promoting Environmental Sustainability through Biodiversity Conservation’ in collaboration with Punjab State Council for Science & Technology, and UNESCO, New Delhi. The kit was launched by Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO on 29^th November, 2007 at Delhi during his recent visit to India. The kit was selected by the UNESCO, New Delhi office as one of the two publications to be launched at the occasion of inauguration of land for UNESCO House at Delhi. The kit is proposed to be used by UNESCO as a sample kit on Biological Diversity in the South Asian region.

This kit had been developed a part of a joint project and comprises the following:

It has been distributed to NGOs and Biodiversity Management Committees in the region.

6. The Punjab Biodiversity Board in collaboration with Fruit Research Station of Punjab Agricultural University at village Gangian conducted a joint survey to collect information and samples of different varieties of desi sucking mango from villages Bassi Umar khan, Gangian, Bunga, and surrounding areas in district Hoshairpur. More than 100 samples of desi mango fruit were collected in the fruiting season (May-July 2007) and handed over to the Fruit Research Station for physico-chemical and morphological analysis. The analysis has been completed and 37 varieties of desi sucking mango have been collected from the region alone, out of which 9 varieties have already been conserved at Fruit Research Station, Gangian by PAU and 28 are new varieties which need to be conserved.

7. The draft of Punjab State Biological Diversity Rules have been finalized and submitted to the State Govt. for vetting by legal remembrancer.

Contact persons
Dr. Neelima Jerath (Additional Director, Environment), neelimajerath@pscst.com
Mr. Gurharminder Singh (Scientist), gsmand@pscst.com
Phone: 0172-2792325, 2793300, 2793600, 2793141; Fax: 0172-2793143