Biocultural Diversity: An Aemerging Concept in The 21 Century

The International Conference on Biological and Cultural Diversity held in Montreal on June 2010, produced the Declaration on Biocultural Diversity and the UNESCO-SCBD Joint Programme on the linkages between cultural and biological diversity. The first meeting for the implementation of the Joint Programme was held in Florence (Italy) in April 2014. The scientific and policy dimensions of the linkages between cultural and biological diversity are of utmost importance in Europe where policies are devoted to the conservation of biodiversity and cultural heritage, but rarely focused on the result of interactions between nature and culture expressed by the rural landscape. The Florence Conference gathered scientists from different disciplines considering biocultural diversity as a good example of a topic requiring a transdisciplinary approach not always supported by university and research. This not only for an effective understanding of the biodiversity associated with landscapes shaped by the man, but also for the further development of the Joint Programme in terms of research and political implementation. The meeting was organized into a scientific part and a workshop for the drafting of a declaration on biocultural diversity. The declaration states that the European rural landscape (about 80 % of the European Union territory) is predominantly a biocultural multifunctional landscape, while the current state of biological and cultural diversity in Europe results from the combination of historical and ongoing environmental and land-use processes and cultural heritage. This book shows the existence and the importance of biocultural diversity associated to European landscape. This heritage should be studied, preserved and valorized by public policies.

Karim-Aly S. Kassam: Biocultural Diversity and Indigenous Ways of Knowing: Human Ecology in the Arctic

EMPRESAS SOCIALES RURALES, ESTRATEGIA DE DESARROLLO SUSTENTABLE Y CONSERVACION DEL PATRIMONIO CULTURAL INMATERIAL. CASO: “AMARANTO (Amaranthus spp) DE MESOAMERICA”

Introduction: Places with high species diversity have high linguistic diversity, whereas areas with low species diversity tend to have low linguistic diversity. Objective: To characterize the intriguing relationship between biological and cultural diversity, a correlation that has been discussed at a global scale, but here tested for the first time in Mexico. Methods: We compiled exhaustive databases on both endangered species and endangered languages, and reviewed available literature on Mexico’s biocultural diversity with a focus on endangered and critically endangered species and languages. Results: With 364 living languages, Mexico is the world’s fifth most linguistically diverse country, but 64 of these languages are facing a very high risk of disappearance and 13 have already disappeared. Mexico is also the fourth most biologically diverse country, but 1 213 species of its flora and fauna are threatened with extinction and at least 127 species were recently extinct. Conclusions: Indigenous peoples are custodians of much of the world’s biocultural diversity. As the world grows less linguistically and culturally diverse, it is also becoming less biologically diverse. Mexico’s biological and linguistic diversity show strong geographic overlap, with the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, Veracruz, Guerrero, and Michoacán harboring most species and most languages. Similarly, Mexico’s biodiversity hotspots mirror language hotspots, and areas with the highest number of endangered species overlap with areas where the endangerment of languages is also the highest.

The conceptualization of interrelations between biological and cultural diversity since the 1980s indicates a biocultural turn in discourses and policies regarding nature conservation, sustainable development, and indigenous peoples. These interrelations frequently manifest as conflicts between local communities who derive their livelihoods and identity from their lands and resources, and external actors and institutions who claim control over these areas, invoking superior interests in nature conservation, development, and modernization. In these asymmetric conflicts over biocultural diversity, framed in discourses that demand the preservation of both biological and cultural diversity, the opportunities for local communities to assert their claims crucially depend on external discursive and legal frameworks.Based on a study of the Karen ethnic minority groups in the Thung Yai World Heritage Site in Thailand, this article explores challenges and chances for local communities to assert claims and rights to lands, resources, and self-determination in the context of the biocultural turn in environment and development discourses as well as heterogeneous legal frameworks. Human rights as individual rights are widely recognized, but may be difficult to enforce and of limited suitability in conflicts over biocultural diversity. Group rights like indigenous rights are increasingly devised to protect ethnic minorities and perpetuate cultural diversity, but are often disputed on the national level and may be ambiguous regarding heterogeneous communities. In Thailand and globally, community rights provide another promising framework with regard to conflicts over biocultural diversity if the claims of communities to livelihoods and self-determination are respected.

Biocultural diversity (BCD), denoting the ‘inextricable link’ between biological and cultural diversity, has traditionally highlighted the coevolution between highly biodiverse regions and the ethnic–linguistic diversity of indigenous communities. Recently, European researchers have relaunched BCD as a conceptual foundation for urban greenspace planning capable of overcoming challenges of the ecosystem services paradigm. However, the methodological foundation for this particular approach to ‘urban BCD’ is still in its infancy, obscuring precisely how the framework is an advancement for studying different urban residents’ experience of and connectedness to nature and biodiversity. In this paper, we further develop the urban BCD concept by using the culturally and biologically diverse city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as a ‘critical case’. First, we employ qualitative field methods to investigate manifestations of human–nature relationships in the favela (informal settlement) of Rocinha and the neighbouring Tijuca Forest. Second, we reflect on how the urban BCD framework and methodology emphasise i) interrelationships, ii) varied group values and iii) participation, and iv) are sensitising and reflexive. Our findings challenge the ‘usual’ narrative about favelas as places of environmental degradation and disaster risk, revealing BCD and nature connectedness that are as related to popular culture, fitness ideals and citizen-building, as to traditional livelihoods and spiritual beliefs. Departing from interrelationships, BCD can portray aspects that a narrow focus on ‘services’ and ‘disservices’ cannot, but attention should be paid to how operationalisation risks perpetuating ecosystem services thinking. Nevertheless, we identify promising avenues for its use in highly diverse cities with unequal access to natural areas.

Simple SummaryBiocultural diversity espouses an inseparable link between biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity. Biocultural diversity is not alone in using the term ‘biocultural’. The term has been used in biocultural studies within anthropology decades ahead of biocultural studies. Both biocultural studies and biocultural diversity use the term ‘biocultural’ as adjective to generate new terminologies such as ‘biocultural approach’ with varying connotations. Such a confusing scenario might hinder theoretical advancements in biocultural diversity. Hence, I propose that proponents of biocultural diversity explore possibilities of adapting the term ‘ecoculture’ from cultural studies. Perhaps using the term ‘ecocultural’ instead of ‘biocultural’ as a descriptor to coin terminologies could solve confusions arising from the expanding usage of the term ‘bioculture’.Biocultural diversity has made notable contributions that have furthered our understanding of the human culture-nature interrelationship. However, the usage of the term ‘biocultural’ is not unique to biocultural diversity. It was first used in biocultural studies within anthropology decades ahead of biocultural diversity. The existing literature on biocultural diversity does not acknowledge the prior existence of biocultural studies, or provide a clear demarcation between usages of the two terms. In this article, I discuss the varying contexts in usage of the term ‘biocultural’ between biocultural diversity and biocultural anthropology. While biocultural diversity deals with the linkages between biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity, biocultural studies in anthropology deal with the deterministic influence of physical and social environment on human biology and wellbeing. In biocultural studies, ‘biocultural’ refers to the integration of methodically collated cultural data with biological and environmental data. ‘Bio’ in biocultural anthropology therefore denotes biology, unlike biocultural diversity where it refers to biodiversity. Both biocultural studies and biocultural diversity apply ‘biocultural’ as descriptor to generate overlapping terminologies such as ‘biocultural approach’. Such a confusing scenario is not in the interest of biocultural diversity, as it would impede theoretical advancements. I propose that advocates of biocultural diversity explore its harmonies with ecoculturalism and the possibilities of suitably adapting the term ‘ecoculture’ in lieu of ‘bioculture’. Using ‘ecocultural’ instead of ‘biocultural’ as a descriptor to coin terminologies could solve confusions arising from the expanding usage of the term ‘bioculture’.

Educating for sustainable development can encompass different perspectives and possibilities that enable the achievement of the goals of (more) sustainable development, as predicted by the United Nations for 2030. This type of education also involves a humanist and citizenship education, which can prepare children, youth, and adults to face current and future challenges, local and global, as actors in building a better future. We believe, however, that for education to bear fruit, it is important that children, from the first years of schooling (primary education), can be in contact with different perspectives, people, ways of learning, and worldviews, locally contextualized and relevant, with strong links to the natural and social environment involving their communities, such as education must value linguistic and cultural diversity, without forgetting biodiversity and the influences they exert on the education of individuals. Thus, looking at an education that encompasses the relationships among linguistic, cultural (stories, celebrations, heritage, artefacts, relationships, and behaviors between people, etc.), and biological diversity, the present study aimed to understand how biocultural diversity is present in the main normative-legal documents that govern education for the first years of schooling in the Portuguese educational system and, above all, if its existence is considered in education for sustainable development. For this study, seven guiding documents of the Portuguese educational system, and primary education in particular (education that includes the interval from the 1st to the 4th year and the average age-groups of 5–10 years of age), were analyzed, and the results show a gap regarding the presence of biocultural diversity, which points to an incomplete perspective of education for sustainable development, forgetting languages, cultures, and individuals.

Most of Eriksen's research over the years has somehow or other dealt with the local implications of globalization. He has looked at ethnic dynamics, the challenges of forging national identities, creolization and cosmopolitanism, the legacies of plantation societies and, more recently, climate change in the era of 'accelerated acceleration'. Here we want to talk not just about cultural diversity and not just look at biological diversity, but both, because he believes that there are some important pattern resemblances between biological and cultural diversity. And many

The importance of montane regions for biological diversity is well known. We also know that mountains contain a great deal of cultural diversity, despite the relatively small number of people living in mountains compared to other regions. What has been less explored is the interrelationship between mountains, biological diversity, and cultural diversity. The study of biocultural diversity involves a search for patterns across landscapes. As an inherently spatial phenomenon, biocultural diversity can readily be explored through the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Our research has resulted in the development of a global database and map noting the linkage between high linguistic diversity and high plant diversity in montane regions throughout the world. In the present paper we focus mainly on the island of New Guinea to illustrate how important mountains are for biocultural diversity. The implications of this research for identifying areas in need of conservation and development strategies aimed at both biological and cultural diversity are briefly discussed.

General background An emerging approach to biodiversity conservation that is ever more broadly expounded upon holds that the major custodians of the world’s biodiversity are the people who depend directly upon it for subsistence. These “indigenous people” and “traditional farmers” have seen their livelihood systems disrupted and their cultural and biological diversity dramatically reduced by economic and cultural processes accompanying the expansion of markets and the adoption and imposition of exogenous cultural and economic value systems. The implications of such a perspective are that, in order to preserve biological diversity, the benefits should accrue principally to those who sustain it. The focus of conservation efforts, then, should be on maintaining the cultural and agro-ecological systems of small, “resource poor” and biologically rich farmers and rural forest dwellers, which is necessary not only to preserve existing biodiversity, but also to ensure its continual evolution in situ. In this perspective, local indigenous property rights, local biodiversity knowledge and management systems, and the direct participation of farmers and rural dwellers in the development and management of conservation efforts are a sine qua non of achieving biodiversity conservation.

This dissertation asks what happens to the politics of multiculturalism in postcolonial India, epitomized in the motto of “unity in diversity”, when “diversity” becomes not only a social, but also an ecological good, given the emphasis on biodiversity in the Anthropocene. The ethnography studies marketized conservation practices such as ecotourism, in the northeastern frontier state of Sikkim, as emergent sites of a politics of bio-cultural recognition, where recognition-seeking ethnic groups articulate their under-valued cultural diversity with the valued biodiversity of this Himalayan region. If recognition of diversity by the state is a mode of being subjected to its sovereignty and of being bound to it, what liberatory potential does being subjects of marketized conservation paradigms offer to marginalized communities? What are the limits of these alternative avenues of recognition? And what is the impact of this politics of ecological and neoliberal multiculturalism – negotiated between frontier citizens, conservationists and national tourists as financers of neoliberal conservation – on the liberal state, which ceases to be the sole adjudicator of recognition and redistribution, that is a significant source of its authority? The ethnography highlights the ability secured by Nepali and Sherpa ethnic groups to escape from the rigid bureaucratized criteria for state recognition, which fail to remedy the exclusion these border communities perceive. However, the validation of their biocultural diversity by conservationists and ecotourists (as neoliberal conservation-sponsors), engenders its own rigid and contradictory criteria. The biodiversity discourse’s emphasis on nativism of species, and the market/tourists’ search for exotic, aesthetic variety of nature-culture, precipitate new forms of symbolic violence. Further, the state while promoting neoliberal development, pushing communities towards the market, is anxious about losing its authority to the market, and reasserts its power accordingly. Communities are then caught in a bind between the state and the market. The politics of neoliberal and ecological multiculturalism, this dissertation shows, entails a diffusion of physical sites and governing gazes of recognition. In this diffusion, communities trade the postcolonial state’s binding ethnographic matrix of cultural categorizations in favor of an unbounded yet anxiety-inducing terrain of negotiations, that is equally unsettling for the state and for its multispecies citizens.

Biocultural diversity, which refers to the inextricable link between biodiversity and cultural diversity, has been predominantly associated with the traditional ways in which indigenous people in tropical countries interact with the natural environment. But it does not have to be restricted to these circumstances. Biocultural diversity may also be regarded as an interesting concept for understanding how people in industrialized and globalized societies deal with nature. This paper explores biocultural diversity in 20 European cities by considering (i) how biocultural diversity is interpreted in urban planning and governance, and (ii) what actual manifestations of biocultural diversity are present in these cities. Despite the fact that the concept of biocultural diversity was hardly recognized by city authorities, interviewees gave many examples of how biodiversity and cultural diversity are taken into account in (in) formal city policies. The research revealed two main manifestations of biocultural diversity within urban Europe: biocultural diversity grounded in ecological features, and cultural values as a basic foundation for biocultural diversity. Consequently, urban biocultural diversity was found to have two spatial levels: the city level and the site level. The former is the domain of governmental policy makers who discuss biocultural diversity in ‘green space networks’ in a rather static way. The latter is the domain where citizens participate in decisionmaking and the management of green spaces; it is here that cultural dynamics are most acknowledged.

With the convention on biological diversity (CBD) office in UNEP acting as global focal point for biodiversity, and UNESCO acting as global focal point for cultural diversity, the two institutions launched in 2010 the Joint Programme on the Links between Biological and Cultural Diversity (JP-BiCuD) to strengthen the linkages between biological and cultural diversity initiatives, and to enhance the synergies between interlinked provisions of conventions and programmes dealing with biological and cultural diversity at relevant scales. The first meeting for the implementation of the Joint Programme was held in Florence (Italy) in April 2014 and produced a declaration to promote the Joint Program in the European Continent. The scientific committee received 165 paper proposals. The selection operated by the Steering Committee accepted 63 papers considered highly relevant for the topic of the conference and also 11 posters, from 25 countries. The expert meeting for the drafting of the final declaration was attended by 42 experts from 14 countries and about 33 organizations, including FAO, ICOMOS, IUCN, and IUFRO among others. The Florence Declaration (UNESCO and SCBD 2014) was drafted taking into account the results of the conference works, and has not only produced political indications for the implementation on the Joint Programme, but also indicated some of the most important issues concerning research activities for the promotion of the concept of biocultural diversity:

Intangible cultural heritage is representative of a community’s cultural authenticity and identity and includes oral traditions, performing arts, festive events or traditional craftsmanship which have been inherited over generations (UNESCO, 2003). Each culturally diverse community possesses its own unique and authentic intangible cultural heritage, which is not only an integral element of the soul of a community, but can be a vital resource for generating tourism at the national and local levels. There is little argument that intangible cultural heritage can provide a destination and/or community with a unique selling point and competitive advantage in the global marketplace. Intangible cultural heritage is experiential by nature, thus supports tourists in their desire to have a culturally authentic experience. In the process of commodification, however, intangible cultural heritage is transformed and staged too often and to varying degrees, which can lead to a loss of its authenticity (Alivizatou, 2012; Giudici, Melis, Dessi, & Ramos, 2013). Therefore, an approach facilitating intangible cultural heritage as a sustainable tourism resource is tenuous (WTO, 2012). Despite the increasing attention to intangible cultural heritage and the advice to adopt sustainable approach in the development of intangible cultural heritage as a tourism resource, little research has explored intangible cultural heritage from sustainability perspectives. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate the extent to which the development of intangible cultural heritage facilitates the development of a sustainable tourism resource. To achieve this, the following three objectives were developed. First, to situate the sustainable tourism development literature within the context of intangible cultural heritage; second, to analyse public organisations’ documents in order to determine the extent to which they have facilitated the development of intangible cultural heritage as a sustainable tourism resource; and third, to establish a framework facilitating intangible cultural heritage as a sustainable tourism resource. This study adopted a single case study, with South Korea as a single representative case. A qualitative-dominant, mixed method approach was used in the process of data collection, analysis and interpretation. A total of 131 public documents from six public organisations were analysed for the second objective. Semi-structured face to face interviews were conducted with a total of 25 intangible cultural heritage practitioners and 22 locals; and questionnaires were given to 255 visitors at National Intangible Heritage Centre in Korea and then collected, to address the third objective. The critical interpretive analysis of 131 public documents revealed that overall, Korean public organisations’ goals and strategies have shown a propensity toward economic neoliberalism, mainly by regarding intangible cultural heritage tourism resources as economic tools. To a much lesser extent, they focus on social development such as ICH practitioners’ equity to participation in the decision-making process and/or intangible cultural heritage practitioners’ empowerment. The analysis of 47 interviews with intangible cultural heritage practitioners and locals, and of 255 questionnaires revealed that safeguarding intangible cultural heritage and developing its tourism role share a symbiotic relationship. This study presents a framework to facilitate the growth of the symbiotic relationships. The framework suggests, for the symbiotic relationship to be facilitated, a top-down approach blended with a bottom up approach, cooperation between stakeholders, and entrepreneurship are necessary. This research addresses a gap in the literature and provides the practical understanding of intangible cultural heritage development. The exploratory research on intangible cultural heritage provides a much-needed framework for intangible cultural heritage to be a sustainable tourism resource, which can be groundwork for future academic research. Moreover, the project offers valuable insight into the combination of various intangible cultural heritage development strategies within one destination (i.e., South Korea), in order to reduce overlapping efforts by stakeholders in South Korea and maximise synergies to facilitate a greater range of positive impacts on the development of intangible cultural heritage for communities.