ENVIRONMENT: Loss of Native Languages Threatens Biodiversity

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Nov 23 2000 (IPS) - The survival of the world’s biological wealth is closely tied to the resilience of traditional cultures and native languages, says a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) study released Thursday.

The international conservation organisation reached the conclusion that the areas of greatest biodiversity on the planet coincide with the greatest concentrations of different indigenous communities.

There is a close correlation between the distribution of cultural diversity and the distribution of biodiversity, evident in a report and world map that the WWF presented Thursday.

WWF research identified 4,635 ethno-linguistic groups, spread throughout 225 regions of major biological importance, representing 67 percent of the total 6,867 ethno-linguistic groups found in the world.

The tropics are home to a greater concentration of traditional cultures, and also for biological wealth, explained Gonzalo Oviedo, a WWF expert. As one approaches the tropics, the number and variety of species rises, he said.

But the languages of indigenous peoples are rapidly disappearing, and with them the ecological knowledge they have accumulated throughout their history of coexisting with the environment.

The extinction of their languages marks the loss of environmental knowledge because, in most cases, it has been passed down from generation to generation through the oral tradition.

Because of this, the WWF is calling on governments and the international community to “support indigenous and traditional peoples in finding ways to develop and strengthen their cultures and societies while sustainably managing their resources.”

Oviedo outlined a sobering future for most languages, as an estimated 600 languages have disappeared in the last century, and half of the 6,000 remaining are already on their way to extinction or are profoundly threatened.

The next 100 years will see 90 percent of these languages disappear, spoken for the most part by indigenous peoples.

The causes behind the extinction include the expansion of markets, world-scale communications, and other aspects of the globalisation process that promote the already dominant languages, to the detriment of indigenous languages, Oviedo commented.

The loss of local languages means the loss of the principal means of communicating knowledge, says the WWF.

But the conservation group stresses that in preserving the natural environment, indigenous peoples do not need to renounce their legitimate aspirations for development.

The WWF does not propose freezing cultural knowledge and traditions in their current state, but instead recognises the rights of indigenous communities to self-development.

The organisation emphasises, however, that these should be alternative forms of development that are culturally determined, not imposed from the outside.

The role of the WWF and other conservation and human rights groups will be to provide backing for indigenous and traditional communities in seeking ways to develop and reinforce their cultures, while also taking care to manage natural resources in a sustainable way.

“This is a difficult and complex challenge in times of globalisation and expanding economic and market forces,” said Oviedo. “It is a task that requires cooperation and alliances, both locally and globally.”