Your FPIC Protocol Is Yours to Design, Not Theirs to Give You
Why Indigenous Peoples don't need permission to exercise their own rights.
Sorry for the late post.
I was considering what to talk about this week, so decided to talk about a pattern I keep seeing.
Indigenous Peoples’ community approaches a State, company, or conservation NGO and says, “We want FPIC.” The response: “Great! Let’s co-design an FPIC protocol together.”
Sounds collaborative. Here’s what’s actually happening: You’re being invited to co-design a process for exercising a right you already possess. It’s like collaborating with someone on the rules for entering your own home.
Then there’s the other version. A proponent arrives and announces: “Don’t worry, we have our FPIC process.”
Both reveal the same misunderstanding. And if you don’t catch it, you’ll spend your energy in the wrong place.
The Reality
There is no such thing as a proponent’s FPIC process.
FPIC flows from Indigenous Peoples’ right to self-determination. It is your inherent authority to make decisions about your territories and futures. It cannot be designed, owned, or administered by the party seeking your consent.
When a company presents “their” FPIC process, they’ve already decided:
What information to provide and when
How many meetings count as “adequate”
What timeline fits their financing
What grievance mechanisms route back through their systems
Then they call whatever emerges “consent.”
It isn’t. They’ve compromised every element before you even entered the room.
When someone offers to “co-design” your protocol, ask: Who holds the pen? Who controls the timeline? Who decides what’s good enough?
The answer tells you who actually owns the process. And whoever owns the process shapes the outcome.
The Shift
Working with my traditional council, we built something different: A journey framework for Indigenous Peoples’ communities to design their own FPIC protocols before any proponent shows up. A step-by-step journey. A framework. A strategy.
Not co-designed with outsiders. Not reactive to someone else’s proposal. Developed on your terms, in your time, from your values.
The difference matters:
Your values first. The protocol starts from your connection to land, your obligations to future generations, your governance. Not from project categories designed elsewhere.
Your governance at the center. How does your community actually make collective decisions? Who needs to be heard? Those answers come from within.
Your timeline. You develop your protocol before anyone comes knocking. You’re not scrambling while their lawyers set deadlines.
Your authority. The protocol isn’t something you negotiate. It’s something you present as established community law.
When a proponent arrives, the dynamic is clear: “This is how engagement with our community works. If you can’t meet our conditions, we have nothing to discuss.”
The Point
FPIC is not a risk management tool for project proponents. It’s not a stage in their approval workflow. It’s not something they administer while you participate.
FPIC is an operationalized form of self-determination. The process belongs to you.
A proponent’s role is to seek consent according to your protocol. They are the supplicant, not the architect.
If you’re asking a State, NGO, or company to help you design how you exercise your own rights, you’re preparing for the wrong fight. The leverage is in having your protocol ready before they arrive, not in negotiating what it should look like once they’re at the table.
No one gave you this right. No one can design the process for you.
The only question is whether you’ll take that journey yourselves.
Before You Go
Next time a proponent says “we have our FPIC process,” try this: “That’s interesting. Here’s ours.”