The Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS), part of the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023, aims to ensure that the benefits arising from the use of natural resources reach local communities, said N. Vijay Kumar, Chairman of the Andhra Pradesh State Biodiversity Board.

Under the Act, the Board plans to operationalise a first-of-its-kind Marine ABS framework. As part of this initiative, a workshop on ‘Access Benefit Sharing in Marine Resources: Transferring Equity to Coastal Communities’ was organised by the APSBB in collaboration with the National Biodiversity Authority, Chennai, in Vijayawada on Wednesday (April 29).