Arti­cle: Talk­ing Diver­sity, fea­tured in IUCN’s World Con­ser­va­tion Mag­a­zine Issue 1, Jan­u­ary 2008. By Luisa Maffi. Biodiversity and cultural diversity are intimately—some would say inextricably— related to each other. Humans have adapted to life in particular environments, while drawing resources from those environments to sustain themselves. In so doing, they have needed to acquire in-depth knowledge of species, their relationships, and ecosystem functions and to learn how to tailor their practices to suit their ecological niches. To a large extent, this has meant learning about stewardship and responsibility: how to use natural resources without depleting them, and often by enhancing them, to preserve options for the future—in a nutshell, the very principle of sustainable development.

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