Biocultural Community Protocols: Making Space for Indigenous and Local Cultures in Access and Benefit Sharing?

This chapter addresses biocultural community protocols and their potential to enable IPLCs’ political and legal empowerment for community-based implementation of ABS provisions and development aspirations. The chapter concludes that the attributes of BCPs, including their outward-facing character to inform external stakeholders, their forward-looking or proactive potential to outline communities’ visions and their inward-looking potential to contribute to community building and the construction of collective action beyond the legal realm, mean that BCPs can contribute to creating legal spaces for ensuring IPLCs’ rights.