Category: Biodiversity News

18th January, 2019: Eight students from Sherubtse College undergoing BSc. Life Sciences studies ended their month long internship at the National Biodiversity Centre today, being the first batch from a group of 19 interns, currently undergoing internship at the National Biodiversity Centre.
The interns were placed with the National Herbarium program and the Biodiversity Information Management program, developing skills and knowledge in herbarium specimen management as well as biodiversity information management.
As part of the internship process, the interns made a five minute presentation focusing on what they did during their internship, what they learned and how they will apply it to their ongoing studies and provide feedback on any improvement that could be made to the internship experience.
The Centre receives more than 20 interns in a year, mostly students from Sherubtse College, College of Natural Resources, Royal Thimphu College and various colleges in India.

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) announced the winners of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for Mountain Development Award 2018 on the occasion of International Mountain Day on 11 December 2018 to honour achievements in ICT-enabled innovations and practices that promote environmental sustainability and mountain development in the Hindu Kush Himalaya. This year, the award was conferred to the National Biodiversity Centre (NBC), Bhutan and Kathmandu Living Labs, Nepal.
NBC was awarded for the initiatives carried out in the consortium-based Bhutan Biodiversity Portal (www.biodiversity.bt). NBC is pleased to receive the award as it recognised the work internationally the centre has been carrying out in collaboration with its partner agencies.
The Director General of ICIMOD stated that they also honour those who are reminding the world that the Mountain Matters through their work. This award is held for the fifth consecutive year. The regional award recognises innovations, uses, and applications in ICT for Development that help promote development and environmental conservation in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region. These are ICT-enabled innovations and good practices that others can learn from, replicate, scale up, or use for the benefit of mountain communities across the region, and the world.

The National Biodiversity Centre (NBC), Ministry of Agriculture and Forests has successfully registered the trademark ‘Zhinor’ with the Department of Intellectual Property, Ministry of Economic Affairs for its nature based products. The term ‘Zhinor’ was coined from the Dzongkha word “zhidey-gi-norbu” which means, a precious jewel for peacefulness.

This trademark will be used for marketing of the newly launched massage balm and liniment oil that was developed by NBC in partnership with Loggchina community under the Access and Benefit Sharing Framework.

Illustration of the Zhinor balm and Zhinor Liniment