Deconstructing Biocultural Diversity and Conservation

From April 25-26, Natural Justice attended a seminar on biocultural diversity and conservation in Sabah, Malaysia. It is the first of three seminars and part of an interactive course designed by the Global Diversity Foundation (GDF) and funded by the Darwin Initiative UK. This seminar, facilitated by Dr. Rajindra Puri (University of Kent), was entitled "Reframing Our Ecology: Concepts and Debates for Research and Advocacy in Human-Environment...

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Bhutan: Will ABS Make Us Happier?

The National Biodiversity Center of Bhutan hosted a two-day multi-stakeholder capacity development workshop on Developing a National Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) Policy for Bhutan. The workshop was facilitated by Kabir Bavikatte (Natural Justice) and Morten Tvedt (Fridtjof Nansen Institute). The workshop explored a number of issues arising from the Nagoya Protocol on ABS, including regulating access to genetic resources and traditional knowledge...

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Attempts to Justify Land-grabbing Criticized by Global CSOs

From April 18-20, the World Bank will be leading discussions of how to operationalize "responsible" large-scale land acquisitions, centred largely around their "Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment that Respect Rights, Livelihoods and Resources" (RAI). According to a broad global coalition of social movements and civil society organizations, the push for RAI is "about creating an illusion that by following a set of standards, large-scale...

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