Culture, Biodiversity and Endogenous Development: introducing the BioCultural Community Protocols

Indigenous peoples and local communities have developed complex systems of values and law, are holders of ancient and vast knowledge of the ecosystems that surround them, have their own spirituality, practices, rites and their own criteria of well being – different from those of the so called “western world1 ” and different from one community to the other. As holders of the knowledge of their customary laws, cultural and spiritual practices, livelihoods, needs and surrounding ecosystems, indigenous and local peoples are the better placed to determine their level of well being and to promote changes and improvements through a process of endogenous development.