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B2. Emerging Opportunities
At the same time as external threats are heightening, there are also new opportunities to engage with
laws in positive ways. There is renewed respect for the multiple values of communities’ animal breeds,
crop varieties, non-timber forest products, and traditional knowledge, as well as the ecosystem
connectivity and functions of their territories and areas. On this basis, communities are engaging in a
range of legal frameworks such as biodiversity, agriculture, and climate change. Although each framework
has its own philosophical and practical challenges, communities are beginning to effectively use them to
secure basic rights and responsibilities. Biocultural community protocols are one rights-based approach to
not only combat the fragmentary nature of positive law but also to ensure that it supports communities’
ways of life.
B3. Community Responses
In response, Indigenous peoples and local communities
According to the Nagoya Protocol on Access and
are advocating for recognition of their customary use
Benefit Sharing, governments must consider
and stewardship of their territories and areas and the
customary laws, community protocols, and
resources therein. They have pushed for legal reform at
procedures with respect to traditional
the national level in many countries and in select
knowledge and genetic resources. They must
regional court cases. They have made significant
also support the development of and raise
achievements in international human rights law,
awareness about community protocols and
particularly the United Nations Declaration on the
procedures. Some governments are now
Rights of Indigenous Peoples. They are also increasingly
considering recognizing community protocols in
gaining recognition in a number of international
their domestic legislation as well.
environmental frameworks for rights related to
traditional knowledge, customary use of resources, and Box 3: Legal recognition of community protocols under
governance of territories and areas (see Box 3 and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity
Table 2).