India, Dec. 19 -- The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has released Rs 14.88 crore (about USD 1.65 million) as Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) funds to the Andhra Pradesh Forest Department for conservation and sustainable management of Red Sanders.
The funds will be utilised for protection, conservation, regeneration, research and development, awareness creation and capacity-building programmes related to Red Sanders, arising from benefit-sharing contributions linked to 29 Form-I applications.
With this disbursement, India's cumulative ABS releases have crossed Rs 143 crore (around USD 15.8 million). Of this, over Rs 104 crore has been released to Andhra Pradesh alone for Red Sanders conservation and benefit claimers, while more tha...