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Since the dawn of human history, everywhere on Earth people have interacted closely with the natural environment as the source of all sustenance: the source of air, water, food, medicine, clothing, shelter, and all other material needs, as well as of physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being.

Through this vital dependence on the environment, over time human societies have developed detailed local knowledge of plants, animals, and ecological processes. They have also developed cultural values and practices that stress respect for and reciprocity with nature—taking care of the natural environment that sustains us.

This diversity of local knowledge, values, and practices is expressed and transmitted in the thousands of different languages spoken on our planet—7000 different languages, to be more exact, the vast majority of them spoken by small indigenous and local communities.

Over half the world population speaks only one of a handful of languages. The rest of the population is divided between the estimated remaining 6975. Credit: David Harmon, Jonathan Loh. Click image to enlarge.

This is how language, knowledge, and the environment are intimately, in fact inextricably, interrelated: in each place, the local environment sustains people; in turn, people sustain the

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