The cultural context of biodiversity conservation - Oapen

Local expressions of indigenous knowledge
By exemplifying the multi-layered character of indigenous knowledge, I have intentionally
avoided analysing particularly useful techniques or single species, cognitive
structures or linguistic terms. Rather, I have tried to reveal the process through which
farmers and their families produce and reproduce their material conditions, social organisation
and cultural values. Consistent with the emphasis on viewing knowledge as
a process of interaction is my argument that it should be conceptualised in terms of a
diversity of flows of information that are highly infused with spiritual associations, expressed
through language, ritual, art and action within human relations with the material
and imaginative world. This process neatly ties together the biological, the social,
the historical and the psychological, acknowledging each as a formative, interactive
part of culture.
However, indigenous knowledge is no panacea that will solve the complex, multilayered
problems at any level. Nor are there final answers that could be presented;
rather, I have uncovered a number of contexts with the intention to shift the discussion
towards the realisation that knowledge expressions are observable material
threads of interaction simultaneously imbued with non-observable transrational referents.
I have traced both the practical aspects of economic activities and their underlying
symbolic meanings. In examining the seen dimension, the unseen was brought to the
surface. By raising questions of how Q'eqchi' describe, experience and ultimately value
the land, and how they represent these readings, reproducing particular visions of the
environment over time, beliefs and principles inherent to the indigenous worldview
like social and moral precepts became apparent. Just as it was not intended to reduce
indigenous knowledge to a ›mental economy‹ or ›cultural model‹ that marginalise
thoughts and feelings through which people perceive their world and which guide
their actions, the foregoing discussion did not intend to reveal the environment as a
mere ›cultural construction‹. I have tried to document that culture is materially and
spiritually built upon the world. The social meanings of sites are articulated through a
complex system of ideational associations. They are embedded in processes of interaction
with the environment as a whole that provides the medium through which values
are created and expressed. Here, landscape forms a crucial part of this medium as it is
shaped and characterised by cultural beliefs and management systems. Place, valued in
its particularity is infused with meaning as a part of ways of life. In reading the physical
landscape, people also read a symbolic and socio-cultural landscape. For indigenous
and farming communities such as the Q'eqchi', their relationship to the land is an
essential part of their identity, and this is, as has been shown, in part formed by the
locality. Cultural identities connected with such a sense of place need to be taken into
account in the field of biodiversity conservation.
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