This paper builds upon a multidisciplinary research approach that encompasses economics, ecology, anthropology, landscape analysis and law to discuss the potential of GI labelling schemes for promoting local development and protecting cultural and biological diversity. To this end a common framework of analysis has been developed to study the process of elaboration and implementation of the GI labelling schemes. It considers three main components of analysis: 1) the adding value and labelling devices together with the supporting legal and institutional framework, 2) the different biodiversity dimensions (from genes to landscapes) and 3) the local production process including practices, know-how, specific quality attributes and dynamics. And it focuses on the interactions and feedback mechanisms between them to highlight the different processes at stakes that underlie the capacity of GI to act as a tool for biodiversity conservation. We use this framework to analyse the GI process underway in the rooibos industry in South Africa. Rooibos is the fermented and dried leaves of the plant Asphalathus linearis that is mainly used as an herbal tea and is produced only in the South Western region of South Africa. GI development in the rooibos industry arose from the need to protect this localised production against name usurpation and delocalisation and to sustain its good reputation at international level against the risk of quality degradation. The local development dimension was raised latter. Main insights from the analysis of the different interactions are the weak incorporation of biodiversity into rooibos production practices. Despite the high diversity among rooibos plants and their natural occurrence within different plant community types, biodiversity is not regarded as a resource in the rooibos cultivation process, and impacts on biodiversity do not form part of many farmers' concerns despite raising awareness of environmental risks (pest pressure, soil fertility)