A growing awareness of the value of indigenous knowledge has prompted calls for its use within disaster risk reduction. The use of indigenous knowledge alongside scientific knowledge is increasingly advocated but there is as yet no clearly developed framework demonstrating how the two may be integrated to reduce community vulnerability to environmental hazards.

This article traces the evolution of the use of the legal concept of benefit sharing in the context of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), with a view to highlighting its contribution to indigenous and local communities’ livelihoods.