A Brief History of Terralingua

Photo: Cristina Mittermeier

Ter­ralin­gua started in 1996 as an all-volunteer, “vir­tual” orga­ni­za­tion with the aim to raise aware­ness of the loss of bio­cul­tural diver­sity and the need to stem and reverse this loss for the sur­vival of all life on earth.

We launched our activ­i­ties with the con­fer­ence “Endan­gered Lan­guages, Endan­gered Knowl­edge, Endan­gered Envi­ron­ments”, which we orga­nized in 1996.

Our ideas spread rapidly, and within two years we were known inter­na­tion­ally and began to be invited to col­lab­o­rate with major envi­ron­men­tal and cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions and ini­tia­tives, includ­ing WWF, UNEP, UNESCO, IUCN, the Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­sity, the Mil­len­nium Ecosys­tem Assess­ment, and many other inter­na­tional, aca­d­e­mic and research insti­tu­tions, as well as museums.

We are now widely rec­og­nized as pio­neers and lead­ers in the field of bio­cul­tural diver­sity. Our efforts have been highly instru­men­tal in putting bio­cul­tural diver­sity on the inter­na­tional agenda and in the pro­gram of work of inter­na­tional agencies.

In 2001, we received our first foun­da­tion support—an unso­licited, donor-initiated grant from the Ford Foun­da­tion, which allowed us to estab­lish a long-term pro­gram of work that focuses on six areas:

• Doc­u­ment­ing Oral Tra­di­tions for Indige­nous Communities
• Edu­ca­tion for Bio­cul­tural Diversity
• Bio­cul­tural Diver­sity Conservation
• Bio­cul­tural Diver­sity in Policy
• Indi­ca­tors of Bio­cul­tural Diversity
• Bio­cul­tural Diver­sity Mapping

Since 2001, we have received sup­port from The Chris­tensen Fund, the Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment Research Cen­tre (Canada), and a vari­ety of inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions and research institutions.

Our research is highly respected, and our pub­li­ca­tions are widely read and judged influ­en­tial in illu­mi­nat­ing and pro­mot­ing the bio­cul­tural per­spec­tive. Our work has also sparked aca­d­e­mic inter­est and attracted atten­tion from media and the gen­eral pub­lic. Our field projects focus on restor­ing eco­log­i­cal and cul­tural resilience at land­scape and regional lev­els. Through our world­wide net­work, we pro­vide infor­ma­tion, doc­u­men­ta­tion, and exper­tise to indi­vid­u­als and grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions seek­ing to strengthen their abil­ity to main­tain their lin­guis­tic and cul­tural her­itage, restore the health of their envi­ron­ments, and uphold their human rights.

In 2008, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with IUCN and the Amer­i­can Museum of Nat­ural His­tory (AMNH), we co-organized a major follow-up sym­po­sium on bio­cul­tural diver­sity, “Sus­tain­ing Cul­tural and Bio­log­i­cal Diver­sity in a Rapidly Chang­ing World: Lessons for Pub­lic Pol­icy“, which was held at AMNH in New York, 2–5 April 2008. We also were active par­tic­i­pants in IUCN’s 4th World Con­ser­va­tion Con­gress, orga­niz­ing sev­eral bio­cul­tural diver­sity events and co-sponsoring three biocultural-related motions, all of which were approved by the IUCN mem­ber­ship and will help guide the imple­men­ta­tion of the bio­cul­tural approach in IUCN’s pol­icy and program.

What Next?

Ulti­mately, we want to see a world in which Ter­ralin­gua has become obsolete—no longer needed, because bio­cul­tural diver­sity is appre­ci­ated as vital, and there­fore cher­ished, restored, and sus­tained. We have made much progress, but there still is a long way to go to pro­mote under­stand­ing of diver­sity in nature and cul­ture as an essen­tial con­di­tion for the sur­vival of life on earth—and to bridge the gap between that knowl­edge and the indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive actions needed to pro­tect and per­pet­u­ate bio­cul­tural diversity.

In addi­tion to con­tin­u­ing our exist­ing, long-term lines of work, we intend to engage in a major, mul­ti­fac­eted edu­ca­tional effort to main­stream the con­cept of bio­cul­tural diver­sity among the gen­eral pub­lic, through schools, uni­ver­si­ties, pro­fes­sional train­ing pro­grams, as well as the use of the arts and media. Edu­ca­tion will be a new, impor­tant focus of our pro­gram of work in the fore­see­able future.

A Selec­tion of our Activ­i­ties and Accomplishments »