A method, apparatus and computer program product for determining a preferred backup path to protect a point-to-multipoint label switching path is presented. A point-to-multipoint backup path is computed for each node located upstream from a branching node, the backup path originating at the node and including a set of nodes downstream from said branching node. A cost metric associated with each backup path is determined, as is a distance metric associated with each backup path. From the cost and distance metrics associated with each backup path a preferred backup path is selected using a distributed algorithm.