The degradation of natural environment entails a loss of cultural and linguistic diversity and environmental knowledge, particularly when local and indigenous communities lose their traditional habitats. Folk taxonomies, oral traditions and indigenous names provide classification systems for the natural world and express understandings of the local environment. The linkage between language and traditional biodiversity knowledge is in this sense fundamental. Losing languages therefore may directly impact efforts of biodiversity conservation and restoration activities.
About the project
Title: Biodiversity in connection with Linguistic and Cultural Diversity
Type of work: Design Research / Design Provocation
Date: September 2019 – January 2020
Title: Biodiversity in connection with Linguistic and Cultural Diversity
Type of work: Design Research / Design Provocation
Date: September 2019 – January 2020
It is widely acknowledged that environmental devastation harms regional livelihoods and cultural diversity. Local nature-cultures are not only affected by the devastation of the natural world, however; for as networked cultures coalesce, the scope of linguistic diversity brought to bear on habitat loss, biodiversity, and climate change necessarily narrows. What impact does this global concentration of language and culture have on the capacity of the natural world to thrive in tandem with human communities?