Meanwhile, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) has asked the Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES) at the Indian Institute of Science (IIS), Bangalore, to conduct regional workshops to evolve and prepare a detailed manual for PBRs. These will be a storehouse of all biodiversity-related information, practices and knowledge of a community and its immediate surroundings.

At a workshop in Pune recently, Dr Madhav Gadgil, (Professor, CES), who has many years of experience with PBRs, says, "Our proposal is to set up a computerised database and prepare a biodiversity information system (BIS) which can be accessed by everyone, even at the panchayat level. I visualise that each panchayat will have a PBR and we are looking at a total of 300 PBRs to begin with, all over India."

While there is support for the need to document people's knowledge and a computerised database and access system, activists working with adivasis and other marginal groups are questioning the present BD Act as well as such documentation.

At a recent meeting on Community Biodiversity Registers in Hyderabad, Sagari Ramdas of the local NGO, Anthra, said, "When people in the first place do not have the right to land, where is the question of rights over their resources? About 20 per cent of plants have disappeared due to excess marketing since their value has been recognised. By putting down people's resources on paper, specially if it concerns adivasis, one would be monetising their resources."

She also protested against the BD Act, saying it was highly centralised and did not take into account the needs of the people. C.R. Bijoy of the All India Coordinating Forum for Adivasis and Indigenous Peoples, Coimbatore, agrees. He says the Act reinforces the pre-eminence of the state and the state is often an instrument of bio-prospectors. He feels that the PBR is another way of making money off natural resources. Others feel PBRs promote the Intellectual property rights (IPR) regime.

Anurag Modi of Shramik Adivasi Sangathana, which works with adivasis in Madhya Pradesh, says biodiversity had become a source of business and the government is promoting this. "Documenting biodiversity is a conspiracy to steal people's knowledge. Whenever knowledge is documented, it tends to go out of people's hands. How can you talk of biodiversity registers when people don't even have books? ..."

In villages like Mahadapur in Yavatmal district (Maharashtra), where there is no electricity and telephone, Ajay and Yogini Dolke of Srijan, say, "We want to use PBRs as a tool to help gain access over forest produce. Once we know the biodiversity around us, we can limit its use and plan accordingly. We work with Kolam adivasis... There is no school beyond the fourth class. In this scenario, using computers is out of the question. People would feel happier with a register they can see (in concrete terms) and identify."

But Dr Gadgil thinks otherwise. "We have the responsibility to educate people on the implications of sharing their data and knowledge with the world. The decision has to be an informed one. I feel the information can be adapted for use by illiterate people as well. Illiterate women in Madurai are using computers. The way the data is presented has to be innovative - it can use icons, use local languages and dialects."

As things stand, the final decision on PBRs will be taken by the NBA once it is constituted.

Ashish Kothari of Kalpavriksh, Pune, says, "If the data is only computerised, then it will be a challenge for communities not only to access the information but also to protect it. Communities must have the liberty to choose what information they want to collect and how they want to collect, store and share it. Another key question is - how can this information be protected against misuse, especially against piracy?"

The Andhra Pradesh Coalition in Defence of Diversity, a network of 140 civil society groups spread across 23 districts has been taking steps to publicise the rich agri-biodiverity in the state. The Coalition started by creating what they prefer to call community biodiversity registers or CBRs, in every mandal (administrative unit). And over two years, more than 600 CBRs have been prepared.

People have found their own ways of collecting and storing the information in the form of drawings, books or icons. The information is shared among communities in the form of district level exhibitions, fairs and mobile biodiversity yatras across villages. Regarding the PBRs however, P.V. Satheesh, convenor of the coalition, fears that communities would take a back seat.

The central question however, is whether documenting the knowledge will help communities gain rights over resources. Is knowledge being lost because it is not documented or is it because of competition from other practices? WFS