Indigenous Peoples FPIC Protocols

3 Editorial Welcome to issue 65 of Participatory Learning and Action. About this issue Indigenous people and local communities (ILCs) are struggling to defend their rights over land and other resources they have traditionally used and over traditional knowledge they have developed over generations. For example, mining rights have typically been granted by governments to commercial organisations without reference to those living on and managing the land. Similarly, ILCs have received few benefits from the commercial use of their traditional crops or medicinal knowledge. This issue focuses on participatory processes around two rights-based tools – community protocols (CPs) and free, prior informed consent (FPIC). These tools have the potential to: • help indigenous peoples and local communities (ILCs) claim or protect their rights over their resources and traditional knowledge, using national and international law; • build on and strengthen communities’ own rules and regulations for conserving biodiversity and promoting sustainable community-led natural resource management; • help ILCs to negotiate agreements with commercial organisations for access to their resources and equitable sharing of the benefits from the use of those resources, e.g. use of traditional crop varieties, medicinal plants; and • strengthen community cohesion, organisation and confidence to take action to improve livelihoods and defend rights. FPIC and community protocol-type processes are being used to help claim rights and negotiate agreements in various biodiversity contexts, e.g. agrobiodiversity, forests and mining, in Africa, Latin America and Asia – though not necessarily using these labels. However, recent developments in international law in relation to access to genetic resources and benefitsharing (ABS) have brought these participatory tools and processes centre stage.