The cultural context of biodiversity conservation - Oapen

2 THE GLOBAL CONTEXT – international policies and local environments
In recent decades, environmental issues have become increasingly recognised in international
politics. In particular, the effort to protect the ›global commons‹ became a
major theme of contemporary debate. Since the late 1980s, conservation and sustainable
development appeared as key concepts in contemporary discursive strategies on
the global agenda. 1 Within this frame, the term biological diversity, or biodiversity in
its abbreviated form, gained significant weight and has determined discussions in the
1990s. In general, its notion encompasses the variety of life on earth, ranging from
genetic diversity and the diversity of species to the diversity of ecosystems. 2 As a scientific
concept, biodiversity originated in conservation biology. Biologists have drawn
attention to the fact that biodiversity as a repository of genetic information is highly
valuable. In conservationist thought, a basic conviction is that diversity benefits the
1 According to the definition of IUCN, conservation may be understood as »the management of
human use of organisms or ecosystems to ensure such use is sustainable« (Kalland 2000: 330). The
term sustainable development was introduced in the Brundtland report Our common future presented
in 1987 by the World Commission for Environment and Development as a concept, »which meets the needs
and aspirations of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their needs« (cited by Arts 1994: 328).
2 A more detailed definition is provided by the international Convention on Biological Diversity (see chapter
2.2), which defines biological diversity as »the variability among living organisms from all sources
including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of
which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems«. Ecosystem
means »a dynamic complex of plant, animals and micro-organism communities and their
non-living environment acting as a functional unit« (Gündling 2002: 35).