In early September, Natural Justice co-ordinated a two-day meeting on bio-cultural community protocols (BCPs), which brought together a range of representatives of African Indigenous peoples, local communities, and community-based organizations (CBOs). The aim of the meeting was three-fold: first, to review existing rights-based approaches (RBAs) to biological resources and traditional knowledge; second, to evaluate the potential of bio-cultural community protocols to improve existing RBAs in their efforts to secure, for example, free, prior and informed consent with respect to any activities undertaken that affect communities’ tangible and intangible resources; and third, to discuss the viability and utility of establishing an African collective of Indigenous peoples, local communities, and CBO networks that will coordinate activities, share experiences, create linkages, and develop capacity on the use of community protocols at the community, national, and regional level. See blog postings from the meeting here (Sept. 2) and here (Sept 3).
