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clearly the challenges faced by health
practitioners from external agents – such as
businesses and government – and calls for
the community’s rights over its land,
resources and knowledge to be respected.
With support from Natural Justice, the
process was initiated by a small group of
healers, which discussed concerns about
the illegal harvesting of medicinal plants,
collected information and facilitated
further discussions. As a result of the
participatory process to develop the
protocol, a healers’ association was
established with almost 300 members,
bringing together dispersed communities
and two different cultures and language
groups, with a representative committee for
negotiating with others. The healers have
also gained some access to medicinal plants
in a protected area which was previously
completely sealed off.
9. Biocultural community protocols:
tools for securing the assets of livestock
keepers
Ilse Köhler-Rollefson, Abdul Raziq Kakar,
Evelyn Mathias, Hanwant Singh Rathore
and Jacob Wanyama
The role of communities in animal genetic
resource conservation still remains largely
invisible to scientists and bureaucrats.
Livestock keepers in Pakistan, India and
Kenya have developed community
protocols to improve the visibility of the
role of livestock keepers in conserving
genetic resources, addressing problems of
access to grazing land and conserving
threatened breeds, as well as asserting
customary rights in order to secure
benefits from commercial use. This article
examines three different experiences – the
Pashtoon, Raika and Samburu BCPs – and
the extent to which these were communitydriven processes. It looks at whether and
how communities have been able to make
use of the protocols in the struggle to have
their rights recognised. It concludes that
BCPs are extremely useful for making
visible the connection between
communities and their breeds and
important for securing the assets of
livestock keepers in the long term.
10. Sacred groves versus gold mines:
biocultural community protocols in
Ghana
Bernard Guri Yangmaadome,
Daniel Banuoko Faabelangne,
Emmanuel Kanchebe Derbile,
Wim Hiemstra and Bas Verschuuren
This article relates the events leading up to
protests by Tanchara traditional leaders in
Ghana against gold mining on the
community’s land, which was threatening
their sacred groves and water supplies. A
local NGO facilitated a community
organisational process which revitalised
the community’s traditional authorities
and role in biodiversity conservation. The
traditional leaders were empowered to
take action to protect their resources.
Building on this work, the community
developed a biocultural community
protocol (BCP) as a tool to seek legal
protection for its traditional knowledge
and natural resources against the threat of
gold mining. The article draws out lessons
for others in developing and using BCPs to
assert and defend community rights over
natural resources. It demonstrates the
importance of an in-depth, long-term
participatory process for developing BCPs.
11. Defining our territory: the biocultural
community protocol of Alto San Juan,
Colombia
Tatiana López Piedrahita and Carlos
Heiler Mosquera
The Alto San Juan biocultural community
protocol (BCP) in Colombia seeks to
ensure that the collective territorial rights
of Afro-Pacific communities (ASOCASAN)
in the region are not violated by illegal
mining and forestry, and that cultural
practices and the development model that
help to conserve biodiversity are
recognised and respected by others. It also
sets out guidelines for dialogue with