The cultural context of biodiversity conservation - Oapen

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The cultural context of biodiversity conservation
In further attempting to define the terms of reference, Tucker (2003) distinguishes between
worldview and cosmology. Although the terms are used interchangeably, she
sees the former to be a less precisely defined term encompassing a broad set of ideas
and values that help to formulate basic perspectives of individuals and societies, while
the latter is more specifically linked to an explanation of the universe and the role of
humans in it. All religions have developed expressions for the matrix of relationality
seen in the natural world and many of the most powerful symbols and rituals are dependent
on humans' encounter with nature. Although shared characteristics of many
of such sources of meaning have been revealed through comparative anthropological
studies, there is no unique single cosmovision that informs all aspects of life. Since
they are based on perceptions and local belief systems, cosmovisions differ from one
culture to the next. However, the review of studies allows for the recognition of significant
similarities beyond varying peculiarities. 36 The forms and contents may vary,
but invariably they are saturated with religious symbols, myths, rituals and reflection
and though highly varied and both continuous and discontinuous over time and
across cultures (Rasmussen 1993: 176f.). In many writings, religions are contrasted
with scientific outlooks and opposed to the rational supremacy and the humancentred
and reductionist forms of dominant science that elicit meaning from the
world. Sahtouris writes:
Every culture present and past has, or has had, its own worldview or cosmovision. Western science has
evolved a cosmovision very different from all other human cultures, though it has now become the one
most influential in all the world. Its most obvious divergences from other cosmovisions lie in its seeing
life and consciousness only in Earth's biological creatures, and in its narrowing of ›reality‹ to what can
be tested and measured scientifically. This excludes from its reality gods, soul, spirit, dream experience,
thoughts, feelings, values, passions, enlightenment experiences, and many other aspects of consciousness
beyond their physiological correlates. [...] Western science has defined the universe as an array
of non-living matter and non-conscious energy – a universe in which changes over time are due to
random or accidental processes that assemble material particles, atoms and molecules into patterns
within the constraints of a few physical laws (2002: 60).
of anthropology's own cultural biases, including the reliance on the aforementioned dichotomies
such as nature - culture or sacred - profane.
36 In particular, this observation applies to different cultures of the Americas. Pierotti and Wildcat
(2000), for instance, compare local beliefs about the close relationship with nature among indigenous
groups in North America as opposed to environmental concepts of European immigrants. Similarly,
the essays in Bol (1998) describe how North American Indians perceive the natural world by examining
stories of the various groups, their rituals, myths and resource use methods. These notions are
similar to the findings of anthropologists working in South and Central America. Apffel-Marglin
(2001) and Ishizawa (2003), for instance, have acknowledged the worldview held by indigenous
communities centred in Andean agriculture, who see spiritual and physical phenomena as all being
part of nature and the cosmos, while Galicia Silva (2001) provides a similar account of religion and
ritual in traditional agriculture among the present-day Nahua of Mesoamerica.