Our Work

Since 2001, we have devel­oped a com­pre­hen­sive pro­gram of work to sup­port, main­tain and pro­mote bio­cul­tural diver­sity on all lev­els through: 

• fos­ter­ing the devel­op­ment of poli­cies that rec­og­nize the vital impor­tance of the diver­sity of life in nature and cul­ture, and pro­mot­ing actions to imple­ment that pol­icy at the inter­na­tional and national levels 
• map­ping  of the geo­graphic dis­tri­b­u­tion of biocultural diversity
• the devel­op­ment of key indi­ca­tors to detect changes in tra­di­tional eco­log­i­cal knowledge, linguistic and bio­cul­tural diver­sity over time 
• col­lab­o­rat­ing  with schools to develop an inte­gra­tive BCD edu­ca­tional cur­ricu­lum 
• forg­ing a global net­work of bio­cul­tural diver­sity con­ser­va­tion prac­ti­tion­ers and projects 
• estab­lish­ing part­ner­ships with Indige­nous Groups to doc­u­ment Oral Literatures

Edu­ca­tion for Bio­cul­tural Diversity:

How do we bring about favor­able change for bio­cul­tural diver­sity? The way in which we work for this is by engag­ing in edu­ca­tional efforts aimed at the gen­eral pub­lic and the media. Our first edu­ca­tional project was in col­lab­o­ra­tion with UNESCO, for which we wrote the edu­ca­tional book­let Shar­ing a World of Dif­fer­ence: The Earth’s Lin­guis­tic, Cul­tural, and Bio­log­i­cal Diver­sity. Cur­rently, we are focused on the devel­op­ment of  a school cur­ricu­lum in col­lab­o­ra­tion with ele­men­tary and high school stu­dents and teachers.

Bio­cul­tural diver­sity is the true web of life. It’s the plan­e­tary net­work made up of the world’s lan­guages, cul­tures, and ecosys­tems: the mil­lions of species of plants and ani­mals that have evolved on earth, and the thou­sands of human cul­tures and lan­guages that have co-evolved with the nat­ural envi­ron­ment. Peo­ple are but a part of the web of life. But how many of us think of it this way? We tend to believe we’re sep­a­rate from nature and dom­i­nant over it. This way of think­ing is the main source of our global prob­lems. We need a pro­found change in val­ues, and it begins with young minds! We are link­ing up with schools to intro­duce the idea of bio­cul­tural diver­sity in the cur­ricu­lum, and to fos­ter stu­dents’ curios­ity and car­ing for the diver­sity of life in nature and culture.

Voices of the Earth - Doc­u­ment­ing and Revi­tal­iz­ing Indige­nous Oral Tra­di­tions 

Terralingua’s  Voices of the Earth project sup­ports Indige­nous Peo­ples’ efforts to doc­u­ment and revi­tal­ize their oral tra­di­tions. Keep­ing oral tra­di­tions alive con­tributes to strength­en­ing indige­nous iden­ti­ties and helps ensure that indige­nous world­views, val­ues, beliefs, knowl­edge, and prac­tices are trans­mit­ted to the younger gen­er­a­tions. Gath­er­ing these tra­di­tions also enables indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties to record their his­toric pres­ence on the land and their cul­tural and spir­i­tual con­nec­tions with it. In many cases, this record can sup­port Indige­nous Peo­ples’ attempts to uphold their rights when fac­ing devel­op­ment pres­sures that might rad­i­cally alter their nat­ural envi­ron­ments and their ways of life.

In the ini­tial stages of the Voices of the Earth project, we are part­ner­ing with two Cana­dian First Nations, the Saanich (W̱SÁNEĆ) Peo­ple of Coastal British Colum­bia (BC) and the Chilcotin (Tsilhqot’in) Peo­ple of the BC Inte­rior. We are pro­vid­ing small start-up grants to enable them to develop their own oral lit­er­a­ture doc­u­men­ta­tion projects. The result­ing mate­ri­als will con­tribute to their lan­guage and cul­ture revi­tal­iza­tion pro­grams, edu­ca­tional cur­ricu­lum, recon­nec­tion to the land and ances­tral ways of life, and affir­ma­tion of their iden­tity and rights. We will also pro­vide train­ing assis­tance as needed, and work with them for the long-term sus­tain­abil­ity of these efforts. Over time, we expect to estab­lish fur­ther part­ner­ships of this kind with Indige­nous Peo­ples in other parts of the world.

Bio­cul­tural Diver­sity Con­ser­va­tion – A Com­mu­nity of Practice:

How do we con­serve global bio­cul­tural diver­sity? Innu­mer­able on-the-ground efforts are under­way to main­tain and restore bio­cul­tural diver­sity, but most fall “under the radar” for lack of vis­i­bil­ity, and the lessons from these projects can­not eas­ily be learned. We wrote down the lessons we learned from study­ing 45 bio­cul­tural diver­sity con­ser­va­tion projects from all over the world, and have pub­lished them in the book Bio­cul­tural Diver­sity Con­ser­va­tion: A Global Source­book (L. Maffi and E. Wood­ley, Earth­scan, 2010), which make these lessons avail­able to all those who want to learn more about these efforts and their global sig­nif­i­cance. We also cre­ated the com­pan­ion por­tal Bio­cul­tural Diver­sity Con­ser­va­tion: A Com­mu­nity of Prac­tice, hosted on our web­site, which is help­ing forge a global net­work of bio­cul­tural diver­sity con­ser­va­tion prac­ti­tion­ers, by “con­nect­ing the dots” among peo­ple on all con­ti­nents who are involved in bio­cul­tural diver­sity conservation.

Bio­cul­tural Diver­sity Indicators:

How do we know what is hap­pen­ing with global bio­cul­tural diver­sity, and par­tic­u­larly with the world’s lan­guages and stores of 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, we first devel­oped a global Index of Bio­cul­tural Diver­sity and then 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 scales, from the local to the national to the global. These tools pro­vide crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion for biocultural-friendly pol­icy mak­ing and con­ser­va­tion, and can assist local efforts at bio­cul­tural revi­tal­iza­tion. We are con­tin­u­ing to expand and strengthen these tools through col­lab­o­ra­tions with research insti­tu­tions and inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions, as well as by means of field pilot projects.

Bio­cul­tural Diver­sity Policy:

How do we bring about favor­able change for bio­cul­tural diver­sity? The first way in which we work for this 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. Most recently, as a mem­ber of the Inter­na­tional Union for the Con­ser­va­tion of Nature (IUCN), Ter­ralin­gua had a sig­nif­i­cant pres­ence at IUCN’s 4th World Con­ser­va­tion Con­gress, held in Barcelona in Octo­ber 2008, where issues of cul­tural diver­sity as rel­e­vant for the con­ser­va­tion of bio­di­ver­sity were on the agenda. We co-sponsored three res­o­lu­tions: “Inte­grat­ing Cul­ture and Cul­tural Diver­sity into IUCN’s Pol­icy and Pro­gramme”; “IUCN Adop­tion of Dec­la­ra­tion on the Rights of Indige­nous Peo­ples”; and “Recog­ni­tion and Con­ser­va­tion of Sacred Nat­ural Sites in Pro­tected Areas”, all of which were adopted by the IUCN Mem­bers’ Assem­bly. We con­tinue to work with IUCN on the follow-up to these res­o­lu­tions, and in the lead-up to the cel­e­bra­tion of the 2010 Year of Biodiversity.

Bio­cul­tural Diver­sity Mapping:

What is the geo­graphic dis­tri­b­u­tion of bio­cul­tural diver­sity? Through our research, which we ini­ti­ated through a col­lab­o­ra­tion with WWF-International and have con­tin­ued through a part­ner­ship with the Uni­ver­sity of Florida, we have mapped the over­laps in the global dis­tri­b­u­tions of bio­di­ver­sity and cul­tural diver­sity, and have iden­ti­fied “core areas” of bio­cul­tural diver­sity: regions that are highly diverse in both nature and culture.