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65 María Julia Oliva, Johanna von Braun and Gabriela Salinas Lanao
Conclusions
For UEBT, the positive feedback from both
AFIMAD and Candela Peru confirms the
synergies between ethical biotrade and
rights-based approaches to community
dialogue and engagement. These enhance
collaboration between indigenous and local
communities and companies working on
the basis of ethical sourcing practices. These
processes can advance compliance with
ethical biotrade requirements such as transparent negotiations that are built on trust,
long-term and sustainable partnerships,
promotion of sustainable development at
the local level, and respect for the rights of
indigenous and local communities. Work
will now focus on determining which
specific aspects of the BCP approach and
content are most relevant in the ethical
biotrade context, as well as how these
elements can be mainstreamed into the
work of UEBT and its members.
Substantial work has been done to highlight the importance of community rights as
key to ensuring conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. For Natural Justice,
it is clear that rights alone will not automatically lead to livelihoods generation. But
using a rights-based approach as a basis for
dialogue has demonstrated how such a
process could not only affirm rights but very
concretely strengthen the relationship
between communities and a commercial
company – who might otherwise be unlikely
partners.
At a time where the demand by extractive industries for access to indigenous and
local community land becomes ever more
pressing, the generation of real livelihood
alternatives is of utmost importance. The
hope is that these types of alternative
processes will be used more widely to facilitate processes that also affirm community
rights.
CONTACT DETAILS
María Julia Oliva
Senior Adviser on Access and Benefit-Sharing
Union for Ethical BioTrade (UEBT)
Keizergracht 158
1015 CX Amsterdam
The Netherlands.
Email: julia@ethicalbiotrade.org
Website: www.ethicalbiotrade.org
Johanna von Braun
Natural Justice: Lawyers for
Communities and the Environment
Email: johanna@naturaljustice.org
Website: www.naturaljustice.org
Gabriela Salinas Lanao
ATINCHIK
Email: atinchik@atinchik.com;
gsalinaslanao@gmail.com
Website: www.atinchik.com
REFERENCES
UEBT (2012) ‘Ethical BioTrade Standard STD01.’ Union for Ethical
BioTrade. Online: www.ethicalbiotrade.org/verification/standard.html