with a bioprospecting opportunity or a need to defend bio-cultural values, such as securing land
rights from being usurped.
Based on all the above, some participants pointed out that such protocols should clearly define the
rules of engagement with third parties, the conditions to access natural resources and should
include clauses related to free and prior informed consent and the fair and equitable sharing of
benefits arising from the use of these natural resources. Others suggested that customary practices
should be linked to incentive schemes such as the payment for ecosystem services programme.
The traditional healers of Bushbuckridge were facing numbers of challenges related to the access of
local plants and the use of their traditional knowledge by outsiders. They then decided to unite to
address these issues and regulate their interactions with external stakeholders. To do so, they
needed a document that could provide them this ‘power’ and state the conditions and rules of
engagement to potential third parties.
It was also mentioned that a BCP
could
be
an
invaluable
communication tool and the starting
point of a bigger environmental and
cultural rights campaign.
Value Addition of a BCP
The communities in Lamu came
together to raise awareness about the
problem of land abuse and the
environmental and cultural impacts
that a project of the magnitude of the
port development will have. They
believed that a tool such as a BCP will
help them to communicate their
message to organisations such as the
UNESCO, national institutions and the
government.
BCPs were seen as potential tools to
address
conflicts
between
communities of a same area that
share and use genetic resources and
similar associated traditional knowledge. In this instance, the process of BCP development could
facilitate participation, dialogue and negotiation between communities over shared resources or
knowledge.
Working Towards the Legal Recognition of BCPs
The discussion on elements and value addition highlighted that BCPs could be utilised by
communities, among other things, to define themselves for a specific purpose, as a means of
consensus building, and to highlight their role as stewards of biodiversity. BCPs were also firmly
viewed as tools that facilitate, through the use of cultural-rooted and participatory approaches such
as endogenous development, the assertion of communities’ rights over their territories, cultures and
traditional knowledge. The second part of the discussion laid emphasis on the way forward towards
the recognition of BCPs as legal instruments within national and international laws.
Participants examined potential avenues to advance the legal recognition of BCPs. They noted the
importance of the recognition of BCPs or ‘community protocols’, as referred to in the Nagoya
Protocol, in national legislation and policy while agreeing that governments in Africa should be
lobbied to this effect. They stated that the legal validity of BCPs would assist to give recognition to
customary laws at the national level and likewise the recognition of customary laws could also assist
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