Jammu University organizes Capacity Building and Awareness Program on PBRs

JAMMU, May 24: Botanical Club, Department of Botany, University of Jammu, Jammu in collaboration with Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh Chapter of Society of Ethnobotanists and Jammu and Kashmir Biodiversity Council, Jammu and Kashmir Forest Research Institute organized a Capacity Building and Awareness Program on Updation and verification of People’s Biodiversity Register (PBRs) in University of Jammu. People’s Biodiversity Register is an initiative started by National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), Chennai to document the Biodiversity of the Country and traditional knowledge (TK) associated with it so that IPR’s can be protected.

According to NBA documentation must be done at Panchyat level. The program started with welcoming Mr. Rakesh Abrol, DFO Research Forest Division, JK Forest Research Institute and his team by Prof. Veenu Kaul, HoD Botany, University of Jammu. Prof. Susheel Verma, member Biodiversity Council introduced the resource person to the participants and deliberated on the significance of PBRs. Later on Mr. Abrol discussed about the PBR initiative of NBA and role of students in building the PBRs. Further, he elaborated on the procedures to be adopted during documents. According to him, mentioning geo-coordinates and the name of the person who has documented the TK is mandatory. A small documentary on the PGRs was also visualized wherein the importance and methods of PBR were discussed. Preparation of PBRs involves complete machinery from data collection to Biodiversity Management Committee, Panchyat, Panchyat Simitti etc. Data on traditional knowledge available with elderly people, Hakims and Vaids is needed to be collected with the benefit sharing module.

More than 100 students, research scholars, forest official including Mr. Shashi Kant, Range officer research and faculty members like Prof. Namrata Sharma, Dr. Sikander, Dr. Geeta, Dr. H C Dutt, Dr. Sajan and Dr. Romica attended the program. The program ended with vote of thanks by Dr. Skarma. 

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