Critically evaluate the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023. Has decriminalization weakened or strengthened biodiversity governance?

The Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023 recast the 2002 Act from a penal-deterrence model into a facilitative, registration-based regime, easing access for industry and researchers while retaining Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) obligations. Its record so far suggests net strengthening, but with real deterrence risks.

Merits of the amendment

• Regulatory clarity: applicants under Section 7 must obtain a Certificate of Registration before seeking IPR on Indian bio-resources; filings rose from 857 (2024-25) to 1,077 (2025-26), signalling wider formal compliance rather than avoidance [1].
• Benefit flows to communities: ABS has mobilised over Rs 266 crore and disbursed about Rs 145 crore to 10,500+ Biodiversity Management Committees across 23 States and 4 UTs, besides farmers and forest departments [2].
• Conservation feedback loop: benefit-sharing money returns to species protection, as with Rs 82 lakh sanctioned for Red Sanders propagation in Andhra Pradesh [3].
• Global leadership: India issues nearly 60% of all Internationally Recognized Certificates of Compliance under the CBD, and launched the world's first VCS-I-ABS certification scheme, converting compliance into market advantage [4].

Concerns and weaknesses

• Diluted deterrence: offences shifted from imprisonment to monetary penalties adjudicated administratively; for large firms penalties may become a cost of business rather than a bar to biopiracy [5].
• Narrowed base: exemptions for codified AYUSH practitioners and cultivated medicinal plants may shrink the pool of users liable to share benefits [5].
• Capacity deficit: disbursement depends on BMCs whose People's Biodiversity Registers and staffing remain uneven, limiting genuine community consent.
• Voluntarism risk: certification incentives cannot substitute for enforcement against non-registrants.

On balance, decriminalization has strengthened governance by widening the compliance net and multiplying resources reaching local custodians. To keep it from becoming permissive, penalties must be revised to be genuinely dissuasive, BMC capacity built, and PBRs digitised — consistent with Article 48A and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework's benefit-sharing targets.