Community Bio-Cultural Protocols – what, why and how?

This short paper seeks to promote understanding of the nature and purpose of Community Biocultural Protocols. It emphasises that such protocols should not just be developed for access and benefit-sharing relating to traditional knowledge, as envisaged in the Nagoya Protocol, but can be used by communities for furthering their rights and needs more broadly. It stresses the need for a community led process and cautions agains standardised models for the development of biocultural protocols. The paper is based on a side-meeting organised by IIED at the International Society of Ethnobiology's Congress in Tofino, May 2010.