Biocultural Diversity and Sustainability

18-Pretty-Ch18 6/22/07 3:18 PM Page 267 18 Biocultural Diversity and Sustainability Luisa Maffi with the environment and thus of the relationships INTRODUCTION between the state of the environment, the threats or pressures on it, and the response options to Conventional approaches to environmental con- counter or alleviate the threats. Three will be men- servation have tended to consider the role of tioned here in particular. humans only or mostly in terms of the threats that In the natural sciences, the field of ecosystem the intensification of human extractive and trans- health (Rapport, 1998, 2007) embraces a formative activities poses for the environment. “humans-in-environment” approach which, while From this perspective, finding solutions to envi- acknowledging that the global commons are ronmental problems largely means seeking to put severely imperiled by human action, takes as its a halt to those activities by “taking human hands main goal to address Aldo Leopold’s challenging off ” what is seen as the last remaining pristine question: how can we humanly occupy the Earth environments on the planet (Terborgh, 1999). without rendering it dysfunctional? In the social Underlying this perspective is a philosophical sciences, the field of biocultural diversity (Maffi, view that depicts humans as external to, and sepa- 2001a, 2005) – drawing from anthropological, rate from, nature, and interacting with it mostly in ethnobiological, and ethnoecological insights an effort to establish dominion over it (Eldredge, about the relationships of human language, 1995). Complementarily, nature is seen as sepa- knowledge, and practices with the environment – rate from humans and as existing in a primordial, takes as its fundamental assumption the existence “virgin” state unless and until they are encroached of an “inextricable link” between biological and upon by humans. cultural diversity. And in the realm of policy, the That the exponential increase in the pace and sustainable development paradigm that emerged scale of human activities has come to constitute in the 1980s proposes that the key to sustainabil- the prime threat to the environment is undeniable – ity resides in balancing three “pillars:” environ- both through the direct effects of extraction and ment, society, and economy (Bruntland, 1987). transformation of natural resources, and through The documents spawned by the 1992 Rio Summit the indirect effects of these activities (such as on Environment and Development (Rio global climate change). It is now widely recog- Declaration, Agenda 21, Convention on Biological nized that we have entered an era in which mas- Diversity) also recognize the relevance of traditional sive species extinctions, habitat deterioration, and environmental knowledge for the conservation of loss of ecosystem functions are all due principally biodiversity. to human intervention (Millennium Ecosystem This chapter reviews the field of biocultural Assessment, 2005). From the 1980s onwards, diversity, its history and main contributions thus however, several paradigms have challenged the far, as well as the gaps and needs for future philosophical perspective described above, pre- research and application. It then explores this senting a different view of human relationships field’s relationships to the idea of sustainability 18-Pretty-Ch18 6/22/07 3:18 PM Page 268 268 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY and points to its current and future opportunities husbandry, etc.). This countered the image of to contribute to achieving a sustainable world. “pristine” environments, unaffected by humans, that could be brought back to their “original” state by fencing them off to protect them from human SOME HISTORY AND DEFINITIONS activity. (See, e.g. Heckenberger et al., 2003, for recent evidence about the anthropogenic nature of The idea of an “inextricable link” between even parts of so-called “virgin” tropical rainforests.) biological and cultural diversity was perhaps These findings suggested the following conclu- first expressed in those terms in the 1988 sion: the sum total and cumulative effect of the Declaration of Belém of the International variety of local interlinkages and interdependen- Society of Ethnobiology (http://ise.arts.ubc.ca/ cies between humans and the environment world- declareBelem.html). Several decades of ethnobio- wide means that at the global level biodiversity logical and ethnoecological work had accumu- and cultural diversity are also interlinked and lated evidence about the depth and detail of interdependent, with significant implications for indigenous and local knowledge about plants and the conservation of both diversities. Pioneering animals, habitats, and ecological functions and global cross-mappings of the distributions of bio- relations, as well as about the low environmental diversity and linguistic diversity (taken as a proxy impact, and indeed sustainability – historically for cultural diversity as a whole) provided inde- and at present – of many traditional forms of pendent support for this conclusion, revealing sig- natural resource use. The evidence also pointed to nificant geographic overlaps between the two a variety of ways in which humans have main- diversities, especially in the tropics, and a strong tained, enhanced, and even created biodiversity coincidence between biologically and linguisti- through culturally diverse practices of manage- cally megadiverse countries (Harmon, 1996). Map 1 ment of “wild” resources and the raising of shows some of these correlations, with a focus on domesticated species (such as the use of fire, pro- endemism in both languages and higher vertebrate tection and dissemination of culturally important species (languages and species only found within “wild” species, agroforestry, horticulture, animal the borders of an individual country). Map 1 Endemism in language and higher vertebrates: comparison of the top 25 countries Source: Harmon (1996), based on data from Groombridge (1992) (pp. 139–141, for species) and Grimes (1992) (for languages). Figures for Ethiopia include Eritrea. Higher vertebrates include mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians; reptiles not included for USA, China, and Papua New Guinea because the numbers were not reported in the source table. 18-Pretty-Ch18 6/22/07 3:18 PM Page 269 BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY AND SUSTAINABILITY 269 Interest in this topic grew through the 1990s, generally used by its proponents. Biocultural drawing from a variety of sources in the natural, diversity might be defined as follows. social, and behavioral sciences, humanities, Biocultural diversity comprises the diversity of applied sciences, policy, and human rights. Out of life in all of its manifestations: biological, cultural, these converging interests, a new field of research and linguistic, which are interrelated (and possibly and applied work has emerged that has been coevolved) within a complex socio-ecological labeled “biocultural diversity” (Posey, 1999; adaptive system. The above definition comprises Maffi, 2001a, 2005; Harmon, 2002; Stepp, et al., the following key elements: 2002; Carlson and Maffi, 2004). This label is actu- ally a short form for “biological, cultural, and lin- 1 The diversity of life is made up not only of the guistic diversity.” Proponents of this field argue diversity of plants and animal species, habitats, that the diversity of life is comprised not only of and ecosystems found on the planet, but also of the variety of species and cultures that have the diversity of human cultures and languages. evolved on earth, but also of the variety of lan- 2 These diversities do not exist in separate and guages that humans have developed over time. parallel realms, but rather they interact with and This approach also highlights the role of language affect one another in complex ways. as a vehicle for communicating and transmitting 3 The links among these diversities have developed cultural values, traditional knowledge and prac- over time through mutual adaptation between tices, and thus for mediating human–environment humans and the environment at the local level, interactions and mutual adaptations. (On the possibly of a coevolutionary nature. specific aspect of linguistic diversity, see Maffi, 1998, 2001b; Maffi et al., 1999; Harmon, 2002.) A possible representation of these complex rela- Although the theoretical and methodological tionships at different scales is suggested by the bases of the field of biocultural diversity are still diagram in Figure 18.1. being refined, and an explicit, agreed-upon con- Taken together, the above assumptions raise ceptual framework has not been fully worked out important issues of history, pattern, and causality: yet, it is possible to glean some definitions and how have the links among diversities developed key elements based on how the concept has been and changed over time, how are the relationships GLOBAL, REGIONAL, OR NATIONAL LEVEL CORRELATIONS BIODIVERSITY AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY Ecosystem, species & Languages and cultures genetic richness CAUSAL RELATIONSHIPS AT LOCAL LEVEL BIODIVERSITY LOCAL CULTURES Ecosystem, species & Ecological knowledge, genetic richness practices, beliefs, language Figure 18.1 Relationship between national/regional/global correlations of cultural and biological diversity and causal relationships between cultures and biodiversity at the local level Source: original figure by Ellen Woodley, 2005. 18-Pretty-Ch18 6/22/07 3:18 PM Page 270 270 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY manifested

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