TERRALINGUA’S QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER VOLUME II ISSUE#3, WINTER 2008-2009 Langscape Unity in Biocultural Diversity Biocultural Diversity in Education: Terralingua’s Next Frontier Page 2 Langscape Winter 2008 -2009 Table of Contents Letter from the Director 3 Support Terralingua 5 Biocultural Diversity in Education: Terralingua’s Next Frontier 6 Policy for Biocultural Diversity: Terralingua at the 4th World 9 Conservation Congress Terralingua News and Activities 12 Global Sourcebook on Biocultural Diversity: Project Profile -Cibecue 13 Community School Biocultural Diversity Primer 14 Terralingua Members’ Forum 16 Become a Member 17 Langscape is Terralingua’s quarterly newsletter Cover photo ©2009 Cristina Mittermeier Edited by Ortixia Dilts, Web and Graphic Manager, Terralingua To recieve our quarterly newsletter email: [email protected] To enquire about submissions for future issues of Langscape contact [email protected] To learn more about Terralingua please visit our website at: www.terralingua.org Page 3 Langscape Winter 2008 -2009 Letter from the Director Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada, February 2009 Dear Members and Friends of Terralingua, Happy New Year! This issue of Langscape is the first for 2009, so our warmest wishes to you for what lies ahead are in order—even more so that, as we all know, the new year ushered in more somber news about the state of the world. The global financial and economic “meltdown” is making daily headlines, and no less worrisome is the literal global meltdown being brought about by climate change, whose pace is becoming ever faster. No doubt, there’s nothing like a sense of immediate and present trouble for causing many—from academics to policy makers, to international agencies, NGOs, the media, and the general public—to narrow their focus onto the issues of the moment, as if all our social problems had to do with the economy, and all our environmental problems had to do with climate change. But alas, serious as these issues are, our troubles do not end there—and the biocultural diversity crisis is still here to remind us of just that. Indeed, the “bad news of the day” should not obscure that the very bases of life on this planet are being threatened by a lot more than our present economic and climate woes. The ongoing loss of the world’s diversity in nature and culture is deeply undermining the structure, vital functions, and resilience—in one word, the health—of our eco- cultural systems. As many eco-cultural systems—the complex adaptive systems created by long-term interactions between people and environment—continue to falter and fail the world over, we should all be reminded that the challenges we face go well beyond “getting the economy going again” and “reducing our carbon footprint”. Our greatest challenges lie in countering the erosion of the diversity of life in all of its manifestations, and in restoring health to the planet’s eco-cultural systems. Until addressing these overarching challenges becomes the order of the day, we will be largely fighting piecemeal battles with limited chances for success. Addressing these challenges is, of course, what Terralingua stands for. And that is why, from the start, we have been working on so many fronts. Our mission—to support the integrated protection, maintenance and restoration of the biocultural diversity of life through research, education, policy-relevant work, and on-the-ground action—may sound overly ambitious to some, but we don’t see any other way of going about it. You cannot address a problem unless you fully understand its nature, and that’s what you need research for. Through our research, we have developed some of the key theoretical foundations of the field of biocultural diversity, and some of the key tools—from biocultural diversity mappings to biocultural indicators to cross-cutting analyses of biocultural diversity conservation initiatives worldwide—that are helping flesh out the picture of what’s happening with global biocultural diversity, what threats it’s undergoing, and what can be and is being done to sustain it. And, putting knowledge to the service of on-the- ground action, we have also developed a project of our own in the Sierra Tarahumara of northern Mexico, where we work with the indigenous Rarámuri to support their efforts to restore vitality and resilience to their culture and landscape. In the previous newsletter, we gave you an overview of the projects we have been carrying out in these various domains—and more details will follow in upcoming issues. Page 4 Langscape Winter 2008 -2009 Moving from knowledge to action also means engaging with the realm of policy, where key decisions are made that can move individual countries and the international community either closer to or farther away from attaining the goal of sustaining global biocultural diversity. Virtually from the beginning, Terralingua has been working with larger international organizations, such as the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), UNESCO, the UN Environment Program, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), to promote the cause of biocultural diversity and its adoption in the policies and programs of work of these organizations. In the last issue, we gave you a preview of some of the most recent activities in which we are involved in the realm of policy. We were getting ready to participate in the 4th World Conservation Congress (WCC) in Barcelona, Spain, and to make the case for biocultural diversity there—that is, in the world’s largest congregation of conservationists. Here, we’ll give you an update on what happened at the WCC, and about some of the follow-ups on the WCC outcomes, as concerns the further promotion of biocultural diversity within IUCN, the organization responsible for the WCC. In the following pages, we’ll also update you on some of the new work we are undertaking in the other area included in our mission: education. Ultimately, we see education as a central tool for accomplishing our mission. Without widespread and in-depth understanding of the nature and value of biocultural diversity, it will not be possible to ensure that this diversity is cherished, protected, and sustained. Therefore, we have decided to engage in a broad-ranging outreach effort at many different levels, in order to make the concept of biocultural diversity well known to as wide and diverse an audience as possible. We will also begin to develop materials and tools for biocultural diversity education and capacity building, which in due time, we hope, will become widely used in many different contexts—from schools to community groups, to media rooms and more. Stay tuned for further information about these initiatives as they unfold over this year and beyond! We have been glad to see new Terralingua members come into our family over the past year, and we want to extend a special greeting to all of them. We do hope to see many more come in this year, and also that members old and new will make more active use of the Members’ Discussion Forum on our website—it’s your special space to discuss and debate issues of biocultural diversity, and to let us know how we can better serve you and the goal of sustaining biocultural diversity! And for both members and friends, don’t forget the Roundtable Discussion Forum, which is open to everyone! I couldn’t close this letter without an appeal to you, our key supporters, to help us achieve the goals we share. You can do that by contributing your ideas—and we can’t encourage you enough to do that!—but we also need you to do that by contributing Page 5 Langscape Winter 2008 -2009 your donations. These are difficult times for all, needless to say; but small non-profits like Terralingua especially feel the pinch, as the main lines of philanthropic funding have shrunk significantly due to the financial crisis. This year the amount of new grant funds we expect to receive will be far more limited than it has been in the recent past. Your donations can make a huge difference if each of you contributes as generously you can. Last December, we sent you an appeal, in which we indicated that our goal this year is to raise $100,000. It may sound like a tall order, but it would only take 1,000 people donating $100 each, or 200 people donating $500 each! With your help, we can do it, and several of you have risen to the challenge already. We look forward to more of you joining the effort. Also notice that you can choose to either make an unrestricted donation, or to specifically earmark your donation for one of our projects. We thank you in advance for your generous support of the biocultural diversity cause! With warmest regards, Luisa Maffi, Ph.D., Director SUPPORT TERRALINGUA! As a non-profit organization, we rely on public support to operate and to carry out our projects. Our funding comes from grants from foundations and other agencies, contracts for services to other organizations, and, most importantly, individual donors. The contributions of individual donors like you are the solid foundation on which our operations rest. By sending us your donations, you show that you believe in Terralingua’s mission to sustain biocultural diversity in this rapidly changing world, and want to support our work as much as possible. To make a secure on-line donation, please visit www.terralingua.org/html/support.html Or send a check or money order, along with your contact information, to: Terralingua 217 Baker Road Salt Spring Island, BC. V8K 2N6 Canada Thank you for your generous support! Terralingua is a registered charity in the USA.