Exploring the Development And Use Of Biocultural Community Protocols To Help Secure Community Interests And Rights In Relation To Extractives

The document outlines a pilot project by Natural Justice and partners to implement biocultural community protocols (BCPs) in four countries to safeguard community rights against extractive industries. It details specific regional efforts—addressing infrastructure and oil/gas/coal in Kenya, diamond mining in Zimbabwe, lithium mining in Argentina, and various mining forms in India—while identifying BCPs as tools for internal consensus and external rights assertion. The report highlights successes in community mobilization and challenges such as political will, safety threats, and the difficulty of defining 'community' in non-homogenous groups.

• Biocultural community protocols (BCPs) serve as instruments for communities to document their identity, link customary laws with national and international law, and engage with external parties to safeguard their rights.
• In Kenya, communities in Lamu County are using a BCP to address a large infrastructure project and exploration for coal, gas, and oil, specifically targeting issues like inadequate impact assessments, lack of consent, and missing resettlement plans.
• In Zimbabwe's Manicaland Province, a BCP is being developed to help a community threatened by diamond mining to negotiate proper compensation for both land use and natural resources, as well as to address historic land grievances.
• Communities in northwestern Argentina are developing a BCP to establish standards for consultation and participation to protect against lithium mining, with the intent to integrate these rights into the national legal framework and potentially provide evidence for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
• In the state of Odisha, India, the BCP process has expanded from forest-dependent communities to include those relying on mine work, aiming to systematically manage mining, recover lost traditions, and obtain land titles.
• The project identified several systemic challenges to BCP implementation, including a lack of political will, compromised legal systems, threats of violence, and the difficulty of defining 'community' boundaries in non-homogenous populations.
• BCPs have demonstrated utility in both internal and external contexts, such as building intra-community consensus on women's issues and land, and providing a written record of rights like free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) for external stakeholders including UNESCO and government officials.

APA

Natural Justice (2015). Exploring the Development And Use Of Biocultural Community Protocols To Help Secure Community Interests And Rights In Relation To Extractives. https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Exploring-BCPs-Extractives.pdf

Chicago

Natural Justice. Exploring the Development And Use Of Biocultural Community Protocols To Help Secure Community Interests And Rights In Relation To Extractives. 2015. https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Exploring-BCPs-Extractives.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Natural Justice |title=Exploring the Development And Use Of Biocultural Community Protocols To Help Secure Community Interests And Rights In Relation To Extractives |date=13 February 2015 |url=https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Exploring-BCPs-Extractives.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{naturaljustice2015exploring, author = {{Natural Justice}}, title = {{Exploring the Development And Use Of Biocultural Community Protocols To Help Secure Community Interests And Rights In Relation To Extractives}}, institution = {Natural Justice}, year = {2015}, month = feb, url = {https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Exploring-BCPs-Extractives.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }