Biodiversity conservation
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, September 24 2020: Manipur had been making all necessary efforts to fully comply with the mandate of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 and the Rules framed under it, the Manipur Biodiversity Board said in its report to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) .

The Board had proposed to constitute 2,282 Biodiversity Management Committees (BMC) across the State at all levels.

Of these, 1,908 BMCs had already been constituted.

Only about 374 BMCs were yet to be constituted.

The delay in the completion of BMC constitution was mainly due to inaccessibility of the villages due to difficult terrain, refusal of villagers to constitute BMCs and the restrictions imposed in the State in connection with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The mandatory preparation of People's Biodiversity Registers (PBR) for each of the BMCs constituted would incur huge expenditure and the Manipur Biodiversity Board was not likely to receive funds from the Government of Manipur and other sources, owing to acute financial constraints in the State.

The Manipur Biodiversity Board was now working with a new, modified target of preparing 199 PBRs.

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