Our Work

Our Work

Natural Justice works on a variety of issues relating the conservation of biodiversity and the wellbeing of Indigenous peoples and local communities. We work on common property resources, community conservation, access and benefit sharing, biotrade, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), and farmers’ and livestock keepers’ rights. We also work across levels:

  • On legal empowerment with specific communities as well as within regional initiatives,
  • Providing advice to (sub-)national government agencies,
  • In partnership with others at multilateral environmental, intellectual property, and human rights processes to develop laws that support the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in ways commensurate with the values of Indigenous peoples and local communities,
  • Providing technical advice to a range of organizations, and
  • Contributing to a campaign against biopiracy.

Working with communities informs our other areas of work, which in turn give us clear insights into contemporary legal developments and an understanding of how to support communities to better engage at the international and (sub-)national levels.

For more information about our most recent work, please download the chronological review of 2011.

Publications

Bio-cultural Community Protocols: A Community Approach to Ensuring the Integrity of Environmental Law and Policy (Natural Justice and UNEP, 2009)
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Biocultural Community Protocols for Livestock Keepers (LIFE Network, LPP, and LPPS, 2010)
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Endogenous Development Magazine, No. 6
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Latest News
  • 19th Illegal Logging Update and Stakeholder Consultation
    Peter Wood, Natural Justice Associate, attended the 19th Illegal Logging Update and Stakeholder Consultation, 9-10 February in London. The meeting focussed on the implementation of the EU Timber Regul …

  • MPCA Workshop in Uttarakkand
    Medicinal Plants Conservation Areas (MPCAs) in India are bioculturally rich areas of land with a high prevalence of endemic medicinal plants. MPCAs are usually demarcated by communities or by the gove …

  • Meeting on Increasing Number of BCR Lawyers
    On the 13th of February, Kabir Bavikatte and Harry Jonas (Natural Justice) met with Antara Lahiri (Ashoka Law for All) and Vivek Maru (Namati) to discuss how best to increase the numbers of lawyers fo …

  • Maldhari Community Claims Traditional Lands
    In the face of government attempts to ban livestock in their traditional grasslands, the Maldhari community of the Banni grasslands of Kutch, Gujarat, India sent notices to their state government dema …

  • New Article on Stewarding the Commons
    Natural Justice’s own Kabir Bavikatte recently authored “Stewarding the Commons: Rethinking Property and the Emergence of Biocultural Rights” for the Common Voices newsletter of the Dakshin Foundation …

Photos


Images from our work in Africa, Asia, and the Americas
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