participatory learningandaction
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Many rural communities in the global South – including some 370 million indigenous peoples –
are directly dependent on biodiversity and related traditional knowledge for their livelihoods,
food security, healthcare and well-being. But with the loss of biodiversity, valuable resources such
as climate-resilient crops, medicinal plants and wild foods are being lost. Cultural diversity is
being eroded at an unprecedented rate and with it, ancestral knowledge of how to use and
conserve biodiversity.
This special issue of Participatory Learning and Action explores two important participatory tools
that indigenous peoples and local communities can use to help defend their customary rights to
biocultural heritage, natural resources and land:
Community protocols – or charters of rules and responsibilities – in which communities set out
their customary rights to natural resources and land, as recognised in customary, national and
international laws; and
Free, prior informed consent (FPIC) processes, in which communities decide whether or not to
allow projects affecting their land or resources to go ahead, and on what terms.
The issue reviews the experiences of communities in Asia, Latin America and Africa in developing
and using these tools in a range of contexts. It also looks at some government experiences of
establishing institutional processes for FPIC and benefit-sharing. It identifies practical lessons and
guidance based on these experiences and aims to strengthen the capacity of a range of actors to
support these rights-based tools effectively in practice. It aims to provide guidance for those
implementing the Nagoya Protocol and other natural resource and development practitioners, and
to raise awareness of the importance of community designed and controlled participatory processes.
Participatory Learning and Action is the world’s leading informal journal on participatory
approaches and methods, drawing on the expertise of guest editors to provide up-to-the minute
accounts of participatory approaches in specific fields. It provides a forum for participatory
practitioners – community workers, activists and researchers – to share experiences, conceptual
reflections and methodological innovations with others, providing a genuine ‘voice from the field’,
and is a vital resource for those working to enhance the participation of ordinary people in local,
regional, national and international decision-making, in both South and North.
ISBN: 978-1-84369-851-7
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