A South Africa Netherlands research Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD) seminar and workshop held at Rhodes last week highlighted a critical truth: even though biodiversity conservation is a focus of the elite, rural communities have a strong spiritual and cultural attachment to nature and therefore can and should play an integrated role in conservation.
“The workshop brought together experts from around South Africa and the Netherlands to share experiences and forge a way forward for making conservation more relevant to rural and urban communities,” said Dr Michelle Cocks, Senior Research Officer at ISER.
Dr Susanne Vetter from the Rhodes Botany Department added, “We explored the need for integrating people’s cultural values into conservation, while at the same time looking at insights from case studies on the values people attach to nature in the Eastern Cape and other areas.”
“Most conservation projects aim to convince local communities to conserve biodiversity deemed important by outsiders, and although benefits to rural communities are widely cited as a motivation for conservation, we lack a good understanding of the extent to which local people themselves value biodiversity and desire its continued existence.
“In the past we tried to separate the spiritual and cultural values attached to conservation, we also tried to separate the human and natural elements which is proving to be highly unproductive. Even more disturbing is that biodiversity is still an unfamiliar concept for many, including local government officials.”
By looking at conservation, biodiversity and culture at a practical and realistic level delegates and speakers all agreed that change is in order, and “biocultural diversity” should be the new buzzword.
Dr Vetter said, “There has already been a lot of progress especially in South Africa where we are ahead of this game in international terms. South Africans from all backgrounds have a deep love for nature and connect and interact with it on a more spiritual level than most international communities.”
The workshop provided experts, academics and students with the opportunity to plot the way forward. Those present agreed that the next step is to keep debate and discussions going and get articles and information into the public eye.
Next year there will be a biodiversity planning forum where these and other delegates will meet again to put their action plan onto paper. The excitement is building as academics make linkages that promote action – that is, setting into motion the move from studying integration to making it happen.
Dr Cocks concluded by saying “The seminar and workshop were very successful. There has been an incredible response and feedback. There is recognition from all sides that integration is very important.”
The speakers included Richard Cowling (NMMU), Andrew Knight (Stellenbosch University), Michelle Cocks (ISER), Susi Vetter (Botany, RU), Tony Dold (Schonland Herbarium), Birgit Elands, Kris van Koppen and Freerk Wiersum (Wageningen University, Netherlands), Sarah Frazee (Conservation International), Harry Biggs (SANParks), Tanya Lane (SANBI), Ayanda Nzimande (WWF) and several postgraduate students.
To find out more about research on biocultural diversity at Rhodes click here