Bio Cultural Diversity Conservation
As part of the Bio-Cultural Diversity Conservation cluster, Michelle Cocks (ISER) and Tony Dold (Botany Department) have documented useful plants in the Eastern Cape over the past ten years. They have found that while natural resources are important for utilitarian purposes, almost half of the total amounts of wild harvested plant resources at a household level are used for spiritual and ritual purposes in both rural and urban communities thereby sustaining cultural practices and cultural identity.
In a modernizing world cultural practices are threatened by the loss of biodiversity, and, conversely, the cultural value attributed to many plant species could be used as an argument to support the conservation of biodiversity. The importance of recognizing the value of indigenous communities in biodiversity conservation is now emphasized in the International Convention on Biological Diversity, but has not yet been applied locally.
It has been argued that 'promoting conservation in the context of local culture would endow protected areas with a significance that an emphasis on biological diversity, landscapes, or economies does not.' This is especially relevant in a country such as South Africa, where people can ill-afford the luxury of a species-focused conservation ethic but recognize the importance of cultural diversity.
The bio-cultural diversity conservation cluster at the ISER, aims to:
- Develop systematic approaches to study and document the myriad oflinks between cultural and biological diversity.
- Contribute to the theoretical debates around bio-cultural diversity.
- Develop education awareness programs to raise awareness around theinextricable link between cultural diversity and biodiversity.. Promote and monitor the use of cultural values as a tool toimplement biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of the environment.
- Contribute to the formulation of both international and nationalpolicies around bio-cultural diversity.
