The cultural context of biodiversity conservation

Summary

Due to the recognition that many areas of the world that contain high levels of biodiversity are cultural landscapes inhabited by indigenous and local communities, the significant role such communities play in preserving natural resources has been underlined in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In particular, the Convention calls for the acknowledgement and wider application of local knowledge systems being embedded in traditional lifestyles as they can contribute to the in situ conservation of biodiversity. The purpose of this contribution is to analyse the role of indigenous communities and local knowledge systems in the global environmental debate. It draws on an ethnographic case study of Maya-Q'eqchi'communities living adjacent to protected areas in Guatemala. The operative paradigm, that underlies the anthropological perspective, indicates that an understanding of the cultural context is essential to the success of any initiative designed for the sustainable conservation of natural resources. Accordingly, the applied approach assumes that indigenous environmental knowledge has to be encountered as a social product integral to the respective cultural system it has been generated in. Equally, human cognitive understandings of nature are culturally embedded, bounded to locality and intertwined with the broader context. This implies a multidimensional reality in which diverse economic, social, political and historical aspects intersect. The field-based research is concerned with these contextual dimensions of indigenous knowledge, whereas the particular purpose aims to explore the significance of cultural values such as social identities related to the local landscape and beliefs in the intimate attachment of humans to nature that are closely tied to natural resource use patterns, subsistence activities and ritual practices that define indigenous perceptions of the natural environment.