Biodiversity Act (Bangladesh)

The Act provides for biodiversity conservation, sustainable use and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the utilization of biological resources. It encourages research on biodiversity and biological resources to support biotechnological inventions and their commercial utilization, by establishing a nation-wide biodiversity register and documentation of traditional knowledge. A non-citizen, non-resident citizen or any organization not incorporated in Bangladesh is required to secure prior approval of the National Committee on Biodiversity (NCB) to collect or obtain any biodiversity, biological resource or traditional knowledge for research or for commercial utilization or for bio-survey/bio-utilization. Moreover, no other person or organization can transfer to them the results of any research relating to biodiversity or biological resources without prior approval of the NCB. The NCB will determine the fair and equitable benefit by applying different parameters like granting ownership or joint-ownership of IPRs, transfer of technology to the benefit claimers, installing plants in a suitable place for benefit claimers, engaging Bangladeshi scientists or their organizations in research and development, and payment of monetary compensation and non-monetary benefits to the claimants.