The cultural context of biodiversity conservation - Oapen

The discursive context
and organising principles of categorisation that underlie culture and behaviour. 50 This
approach assumes that all cultures possess ways of categorising the natural diversity in
their surroundings, providing themselves with the cognitive tools by which environmental
components can be intellectually manipulated to achieve culturally determined
ends (Nakashima 1998: 14). So far, the most common approach to evaluating knowledge
related to biological diversity consists of ethnobotanical surveys, which essentially
focus on the uses of given plant species. These extensive folk taxonomies correspond
closely with systematic scientific taxonomies but generally do not consider
trends in abundance of particular species or the impacts of human resource use on
their status (Hellier et al. 1999: 870). 51 In dealing with Cognitive Anthropology and the Environment,
Kempton (2001) points to a sample of questions, which studies in ethnobiology
still have not managed to answer comprehensively. Although the classification
of plants and animals is well understood, it is still unclear how knowledge of the environment
is produced and how societies come to develop sustainable practices. Even if
current work in ethnobotany has taken greater care to note the relevant social contexts
of local understandings and practices, critics such as Kottak affirm that anthropology's
contribution is »to place people ahead of plants, animals and soil« (1999: 33).
However, the methods that anthropologists have pursued to study and define IK
have changed during the past decades. Although many questions that occupied earlier
researchers who also identified themselves as ethnoscientists continue to inform ethnographic
accounts, contemporary foci move away from notions that are restricted only
to biological relations towards approaches that value the perceptions of local people
about their environments. 52 A review of the current trends indicates that it is hardly
possible to delineate clearly the profiles of these emerging research traditions as they
are distinguished by cross-disciplinary approaches. In general, it can be stated that an
increasing number of studies do not only focus on ecological knowledge repertoires
themselves but also on their symbolic content, bringing to the surface some of the less
tangible values that inform what is generally regarded as an economic relationship
with the environment. As has been outlined, knowledge is characteristically situated
within broader cultural traditions, and this implies, according to Ellen, that »separating
the technical from the non-technical, the rational from the non-rational, is problem-
50 A pioneer in the field of cognitive anthropology was Harold Conklin who dedicated himself in the
1950s to the study of knowledge acquired by indigenous people of the Philippines to farm the tropical
forests. He concentrated on environmental knowledge through the examination of indigenous
semantic categories. According to his findings, the ethnobotanical classification system of the Hanunóo
comprised 1,800 specific plant names (Kempton 2001: 68).
51 For further details, see Ethnobotanical Classification. Principles of Categorization of Plants and Animals in
Traditional Societies by Berlin (1992). Dudley and Balée define ethnobotany as »the study of plants and
people in their historical and geographic totality« (2005: 617; emphasis added). In discussing overlapping
spheres of plant use and knowledge, they point to a relatively understudied aspect of ethnobotany,
namely the question of how the use of plant resources is related to religious understandings.
In particular they remind that throughout history there has been a strong link between healing practices,
medicinal plants and spiritual beliefs.
52 Sanga and Ortalli (2003) compile actual ethnoscientific approaches in Nature Knowledge. Ethnoscience,
Cognition, and Utility.
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