The cultural context of biodiversity conservation - Oapen

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The cultural context of biodiversity conservation
People see what they have learnt to see. They do this according to their cultural
knowledge and beliefs, locating value in the things that their culture values. However,
it needs to be recalled that humans do not have different capacities to value; they employ
the same processes of defining and locating value. The difference »lies in what
they choose to prioritise and encourage and, perhaps most importantly, where they locate
values within their environment. These cultural choices form a coherent pattern
that informs every aspect of their lives, creating a particular mode of interaction with
the landscape« (Strang 1997: 276). Given the importance of such values, any participatory
venture designed for nature conservation should strengthen communities' efforts
to reassert traditions and values inherent to the human-environment interaction.
Whether indigenous knowledge can become part of an applied science in the
framework of a community-based conservation strategy remains to be seen. In the
present case, the complex relationships between environmental management and
principles inherent to the cosmovision have yet to be teased out to allow for an equitable
advancement of conservation. According to Seeland, integration largely depends
on the cognitive compatibility of customary and modern scientific approaches, and
the meaning of knowledge in a given setting, which is predominantly in a state of cultural
transition. He reminds to take into account that knowledge »in the interface of a
cultural lag between foreign development agencies and national administrations, regional
and local interests of economically and socially dominant classes is an aspect of
consciousness in a context of power« (2000: 11). Pointing the way forward, he argues
that in contemporary development processes, indigenous knowledge will always be a
blend of different stages of modern and traditional elements. The diversity of cultural
knowledge and the corresponding norms and values inevitably leads to a process of
negotiation within society. A central question in this process is the readiness of the
social actors to accept or even embark on discussions concerning forms of knowledge
other than their own. Given the fact that human beings essentially relate to each other
from positions of interest and need, Flores Arenales claims that it would be important
to seek out the points of contact between these different interests which allows for the development of
unified projects from different perspectives. However, and this is a basic ethical point, this must be
done without sacrificing the main interests of one party to those of the other, as has tended to be the
case in several collaborative experiences. In this sense it is important to find mechanisms and situations
which enable us to ›mediate‹ positions (1999: 46f.).
Considering that indigenous knowledge of biodiversity appears to be disappearing
even faster than biodiversity itself, relatively few conservation efforts have focussed
on the preservation of knowledge. It has been suggested by Zent (1999: 122) that
natural conservation policy can be strengthened by instituting an integrated biocultural
approach in which indigenous knowledge is recognised as a valuable resource
and action is taken to preserve this knowledge in situ. Given the increasing acknowledgement
that experiences of indigenous peoples have a major role to play in biodiversity
conservation, the first and most important task in this context is to encounter