Conservation and Sustainable Use of the Biosphere - WBGU

172 E Diversity of landscapes and ecosystems
anthropology, ethnology and human ecology. The
relationship between nurture and nature has always
been an issue in psychology and is currently gaining
renewed attention as a result of the arguments in
behavioural biology (eg biological basis of people’s
preference for natural stimuli).
Like all living beings, humans are a product of biological
evolution. However, of all species man has
traditionally always been given a special position
because he has unique physical and psychological
properties as a result of his ‘biological endowment’.
Through intelligence, long-term memory and the
ability to speak he is able to order his world by
imposing his own categories, to interpret it and act
accordingly, and also to transmit this knowledge to
his offspring.
Although in the past it was usual to consider
humans (unlike animals) as cultural beings as
opposed to part of the natural world, our modern
insight into the interaction of nature and culture no
longer allows such a dichotomy. Much rather, we
must clarify the processes and activities by means of
which, and the extent to which, nature and culture
are related to each other. The former view has been
superseded and today we do not see nature as a
world ‘untouched’ by man, left to itself that is
‘strange’ because of its autonomous laws, but as a
world constructed and appropriated by mental and
physical human activities.
In the tradition of the Russian school of cultural
history (Leontyev, 1973) appropriation is understood
to be man’s interactive coping with his environment,
by means of which man changes or defines his environment
for his own purposes, thus making it into a
human environment (Kruse and Graumann, 1978;
Graumann and Kruse, 1990). This is a dialectical
process: in the extent to which man, whether as a
species or an individual, appropriates something
from his environment and thus makes it his own
(humanum) by processing or use, ie into an object
that ultimately mirrors human activities, it will reflect
back on to man as a changed environment. Man who
has such an impact on his environment also changes
in the process.
This makes it clear that the term ‘appropriation’
refers to two distinct processes that coincide here:
one is the historical process of appropriation of
nature (its raw materials and forces) and resultant
products, which leads to extremely different philosophies
and practices over many generations in different
cultural and ethnic groups (eg mediaeval societies
in Europe). The other inherent process is biographical
and individual learning that starts afresh
for every life history. The subject of the first process
is humankind, differentiated according to peoples,
tribes and their various cultures and languages. The
subject of the second process is the individual who
has to learn the achievements of his or her culture
afresh.
Appropriation certainly takes place in a historical
and culture-specific perspective through the conversion
of nature into culture through work: converting
slopes into rice terraces, removing stones and soil to
build houses, developing transport routes on water
and land, breeding plants, domesticating animals, but
also appropriation of other humans and peoples
through conquest and subjugation. One essential
part of this process is the symbolic appropriation of
nature, by depicting it artistically and naming its parts
linguistically (categorization). In this symbolic
appropriation, differences in religion, myths, general
beliefs and knowledge play a key role. Closely linked
to symbolic appropriation is value formation. This is
culture-specific, giving rise to the problem that valuations
of natural and cultural assets and states of
affairs (material culture), and the attitudes and
stances taken with respect to them, are so divergent
from one culture to another that intercultural communication
often becomes difficult, if not impossible.
E 3.5.3
Reappraisal of indigenous and local cultures:
importance in the context of biosphere policy
New interest in indigenous societies
A (negative) example of cultural appropriation is the
way in which representatives of western cultures
once relied on their own systems of beliefs and knowledge
about indigenous cultures (Box E 3.5-1), even
classing them as inferior (‘primitive’, ‘naïve’, entirely
based on subjective opinion). Only in recent times
has new interest been expressed in the knowledge
and practices of these peoples, most of whom live in
tribal societies. Around 5,000 such groups exist,
encompassing a total of 200–300 million people, frequently
living in rural or semi-natural areas with high
biological diversity, half of them in China and India.
There are various reasons why that is the case.
• Since the 1960s it has been increasingly recognized
that the consumption of energy and resources that
go hand in hand with western cultural patterns
and lifestyles, the destruction of ecosystems, and
other processes of degradation, lead to global
environmental problems.
• It is also recognized that many indigenous and traditional
societies have succeeded in conserving
the biosphere or managing it sustainably. In the
process, they use practices that are supported by a
complex interaction of knowledge, philosophies
and religious belief systems developed over long
periods of time.To what extent can this knowledge