Cement, Energy and Environment

Rs 3000 crore would be available under it. The Rs. 5000-crore fund recommended by the Thirteenth Finance Commission would be released in the next five years to states, according to their forest cover. Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh will be the major beneficiaries under the scheme. The announcement comes at a time when the country is witnessing extended monsoon, "which is unusual". Ramesh also said that about 220 scientists from 120 research institutions are working on assessing the impact of climate change on agriculture, water, health, and forest. The research covers the impact on the Himalayan glaciers, Northeastern region, Western Ghats, and coastal areas . Their report will be available in the next two months, Ramesh added. Courtesy: TERRAGREEN, Oct.2010, Pp50. Natural Resources & Environment JAPAN MEET TO INK LANDMARKCUMATEPACT NAGOYt-· Agreement will have far-reaching implications for biodiversity-rich nations like India Amitabh Sinha New Delhi Away from the limelight, and shorn of the hype that surrounds climate change negotiations, more than 190 countries are meeting in Japan from 18.10.2010 to finalize a landmark environment agreement that will have far- reaching implications for biodiversity-rich nations like India. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) - which emerged out of the same 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that gave rise to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)– is meeting in Nagoya, Japan, for its tenth biennial conference from October 18 to 29. The most important agenda before the meeting is to decide how the benefits accruing out of commercial exploitation of bio– resources, like medicinal plants or herbs, can be shared with local communities which own these resources or whose traditional knowledge about these resources had made the benefits possible. The 'Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) Protocol', that is under negotiation, is being designed to deal with situations like those that had emerged following attempts by large multinational corporations to patent the medicinal properties of neem or turmeric - properties that have been known to several communities in India for hundreds of years and actively used in a number of circumstances. The Protocol-in-the-making is based on the principle that the benefits of genetic resources must not be monopolized by individuals, corporations or even governments and that these must be shared with larger communities of people. According to Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, there were about 400 applications pending before the US patent office seeking to use genetic resources found in India. About 200 such applications are said to be pending before the European patent office and approximately 100 in Australia. "For India, the ABS Protocol is as important as the climate change agreement, if not more. There is so much traditional knowledge available in our country and we need to protect that. When foreign companies access our bio-resources they must be made to share the benefits with us," Ramesh said. But like any international agreement, the negotiations for ABS Protocol have not been a smooth ride. The fault lines, naturally, lie in the divide between the rich countries and the developing world. Countries like India and Brazi l are pushing for the inclusion of human pathogens in the ABS protocol. The rich countries, home to most of the big pharmaceutical companies, are obviously resisting this, preferring a separate agreement on human pathogens . A similar tug of war is on over the inclusion of derivatives of bio-resources in the protocol. While India, and other developing countries, wants the ABS Protocol to the entire value chain of genetic resources, the rich countries would like it to be restricted only to primary bio– resource. 'These are areas of strong disagreements but these are also red lines for India. We would not accept any agreement that does not include human pathogens and derivatives," Ramesh asserted. Courtesy: The Indian Express, October 18, 2010, P B. UN SAYS URGENT ACTION NEEDED TO CHECK EXTINCTION Nagoya (Japan), 18 Oct: The world cannot afford to allow nature's riches to disappear, the United Nations said on 18.10.2010 at the start of a major meeting to combat losses 54