Biocultural Diversity Conservation

Book excerpt: The field of biocultural diversity is emerging as a dynamic, integrative approach to understanding the links between nature and culture and the interrelationships between humans and the environment at scales from the global to the local. Its multifaceted contributions have ranged from theoretical elaborations, to mappings of the overlapping distributions of biological and cultural diversity, to the development of indicators as tools to measure, assess, and monitor the state and trends of biocultural diversity, to on-the-ground implementation in field projects. This book is a unique compendium and analysis of projects from all around the world that take an integrated biocultural approach to sustaining cultures and biodiversity. The 45 projects reviewed exemplify a new focus in conservation: this is based on the emerging realization that protecting and restoring biodiversity and maintaining and revitalizing cultural diversity and cultural vitality are intimately, indeed inextricably, interrelated. Published with Terralingua and IUCN