United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

• Founded in 1945 as the successor to the League of Nations' International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation.

• This organisation is a Specialized Agency of the United Nations’s principle organ, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)

• Objective is to foster peace and security through the promotion of international collaboration in the fields of education, science, culture, communication, and information.

• As of 2023, the organisation comprises 194 member states, including India, and 12 associate members. 

• United Nations membership grants the right to join UNESCO; however, Israel and Liechtenstein are not member states of UNESCO.

• It publishes the UN World Water Development Report and Global Education Monitoring Report.

• It's other programmes include, World Heritage Sites, Intangible Cultural Heritages list, Creative Cities Network.

World Heritage Convention.

• Established in 1972, it stands as one of the most significant global conservation instruments.

• Its mission is to identify and safeguard the world's natural and cultural heritage that is deemed to possess Outstanding Universal Value.

• The Convention is overseen by the World Heritage Committee, supported by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, which acts as the Convention's secretariat, along with three technical advisory bodies to the Committee.

• International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

• International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS)

• International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration Cultural Property (ICCROM).

The Biological Diversity Act, 2002

• The Biological Diversity Act, 2002, was enacted to fulfil the goals of the 1992 UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which acknowledges the sovereign rights of states over their biological resources.

• Features of the Act: 

• The Act mandates that the following activities cannot be conducted without prior approval from the National Biodiversity Authority:

• Obtaining any biological resource from India for research or commercial use by any person or organisation.

• Transferring research results related to biological resources from or obtained in India.

• Claiming intellectual property rights on any invention derived from research on biological resources obtained from India requires prior approval under the Act.

• The act proposed a three-tier structure to oversee access to biological resources.

• The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA)

• The State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs)

• The Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs).

• The Act allocates special funds and a distinct budget to these authorities to conduct research projects involving the natural biological resources of the country.

• In consultation with the NBA, the Central Government identifies threatened species and oversees their collection, rehabilitation, and conservation efforts.

• Disputes concerning benefit-sharing or decisions made by the NBA or SBBs can be addressed through recourse to the National Green Tribunal (NGT).