The cultural context of biodiversity conservation - Oapen

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The cultural context of biodiversity conservation
In the following, attention will be drawn towards the question of how knowledge gained
from living within a particular landscape determines the environmental imagery
that people construct. It will be shown that underpinning the seen dimension is a particular
concept of nature that commonly remains unseen. Juxtaposing aspects of the
cosmovision with an outline of the economic activities serves to illuminate how human
engagements with the natural environment reflect social and spiritual dimensions
of biodiversity. The aim of the next chapter is to underscore the cultural processes
through which places are rendered meaningful by looking at further localised expressions
of indigenous knowledge. As mentioned, environmental knowledge and accompanying
practices are closely related to commonly held values about how people understand
the world and their place therein. Even though these values change with new
knowledge and technologies, it has been affirmed by Hatse and De Ceuster (2001a)
that we can still speak about culturally specific systems. By means of extensive case
studies among rural Q'eqchi' communities, they have explored the persistence of cultural
beliefs and customs that still form the base upon which traditional agriculture is
widely practised and can be seen as functioning to reinforce a community's set of rules
for managing resources. As concluded by Ellen and Harris (2000), the failure to take
into account the co-existence of the various interconnections between both empirically
and symbolically motivated criteria within any knowledge system inevitably leads
to limited understandings about how knowledge operates and how it is situationally
successful. In all resource management systems, the perceptions, attitudes, values,
ethical standards and aspirations of those involved are fundamental to its structure
and operation. It will be shown that fundamental cultural frameworks such as religious
systems can play a vital role in the retention of biodiversity-related knowledge systems.