Context: Recently, Kolkata became the first major metropolitan city in India to prepare a detailed register of biodiversity (People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR)).

• Note: Chandigarh and Indore are other important cities that have prepared the document.

Key highlights of Kolkata’s PBR

• Prepared by: Kolkata’s Biodiversity Management Committee (BMC).
• The PBR documented 399 plant and 283 animal species at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) headquarters.

People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR)

• The People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR) entails complete documentation of biodiversity such as flora, fauna medicinal sources, land use and human activities etc. within a particular place such as a city.
• The Biological Diversity Act (BDA) has made it mandatory for every local self-governing institution in rural and urban areas to constitute a Biodiversity Management Committee (BMC) within their area of jurisdiction.
• Once constituted, the BMC must prepare a Peoples’ Biodiversity Register (PBR) in consultation with local people.
• A PBR comprehensively documents traditional knowledge of local biological resources. The BMC is the custodian of these resources, and any industry that extracts biological resources from these areas has to share part of its revenue with the local community.

Advantages of PBR

• Aid in tracing the changes in habitats, 
• Help in conservation and sustainable development of biodiversity, 
• Since it is a bottom-up exercise, PBR will help in understanding the overlap of cultural and natural biodiversity.