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Mapping Biocultural Diversity
Measuring and Monitoring Biocultural Diversity
Maintaining Biocultural Diversity: Eco-Cultural Health in the Sierra Tarahumara,
Mexico
Networking for Biocultural Diversity
Policy Making for Biocultural Diversity
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Over the past several years, Terralingua’s projects have focused on four main areas: mapping biocultural diversity, measuring and monitoring biocultural diversity, maintaining biocultural diversity, and networking for biocultural diversity. Our work has had a major role in giving shape to these key aspects of the field of biocultural diversity. In addition, we have focused on promoting policies for biocultural diversity at the international level.
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Mapping
Biocultural Diversity
Did you know that biodiversity and cultural diversity are interlinked and abound in the same places? Through our research, we have mapped the global overlapping distributions of biodiversity and cultural diversity, and have identified "core areas" of biocultural diversity: regions that are highly diverse in both nature and culture. We are preparing an Atlas of Biocultural Diversity to tell the story of biocultural diversity through maps: why biocultural diversity is distributed the way it is, what makes it resilient, what threatens it, where it is persistent, where it is being lost, and why all this matters. The Atlas will be a key resource for researchers, educators, and the general public. Click here for more...
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Measuring and Monitoring Biocultural Diversity
How do we know what is happening with the world's biocultural diversity, and particularly with the worlds’ languages and traditional environmental knowledge (TEK)? How do the trends in persistence or loss of languages and TEK compare with the trends in biodiversity? To answer these critical questions, Terralingua has developed a global Index of Biocultural Diversity and are working on an Index of Linguistic Diversity and a Vitality Index of Traditional Environmental Knowledge. Together, these tools allow for an assessment of the state of biocultural diversity at different levels, from the local to the global. These tools will benefit policy making and biocultural conservation planning. Click here for more…
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Maintaining Biocultural Diversity:Eco-Cultural
Health in the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico
What is happening with biocultural diversity at the local level? Worldwide, the threats to traditional societies, their cultures, their languages, and their environments are severe. In many places, this has already caused significant erosion of biocultural diversity. In other places, traditional societies are still resilient, but encroachment is relentless. In all cases, maintaining and restoring ecological and cultural health is the great challenge of our times. Terralingua is working with the indigenous Rarámuri people in the Sierra Tarahumara of northern Mexico, to assist their efforts to continue their way of life in the landscape in which they have lived for generations. Both are
under threat by economic, political, and social
forces. On the Rarámuri's request, our initial
focus has been on water, hygiene and sanitation,
and ecological restoration. Future plans include
the development of an alternative school
curriculum focused on Rarámuri language and
culture. Click here for more…
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Networking for Biocultural
Diversity
How do we bring about favorable change for biocultural diversity? One way is to increase the visibility of what people are doing on the ground to maintain and restore biocultural diversity. Innumerable efforts are underway, but most fall “under the radar” for lack of visibility, and the lessons from these projects cannot easily be learned. Terralingua is writing down the lessons learned from 45 projects from all over the world in a Source Book on Biocultural Diversity, which will be available to all those who want to learn more about these efforts and their global significance. By creating a network of biocultural diversity conservation practitioners, we are also helping to “connect the dots” among people on all continents who are working to strengthen and recover the health and vitality of local cultures and environments. Click here for more…
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Policy Making for Biocultural Diversity
How do we bring about favorable change for biocultural diversity? Another way is by fostering the development of policies that recognize the vital importance of the diversity of life in nature and culture, and promoting action to implement that recognition at international and national levels. Currently, as a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Terralingua is working in preparation for IUCN’s 4th World Conservation Congress (WCC), where issues of cultural diversity as relevant for the conservation of biodiversity will be on the table. We are co-sponsoring three resolutions for the vote of the IUCN’s membership: one on “Integrating Culture and Cultural Diversity into IUCN’s Policy and Programme”; one on “IUCN Adoption of Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”; and one on “Recognition and Conservation of Sacred Natural Sites in Protected Areas”. Click here for more…
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