Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥

In declaring 2022-2032 the International Year of Indigenous Languages, sought ‘to draw attention to the critical loss of indigenous languages and the urgent need to preserve, revitalise and promote indigenous‘. It is estimated that of the approximately 6,700 languages spoken worldwide about 40% are endangered, and 97% of the world's population speaks only 4% of those languages. Globally, an indigenous language is lost every two weeks; and with each lost language, an entire world disappears.

Some may see parallels between this decline in linguistic and cultural diversity and the threats to biodiversity. Half of our world’s coral reefs have disappeared, and we have already lost of the world’s wetlands. Species abundance has in the last 50 years, with more than 45,300 species – nearly a third of all known species - on the .

While the threats to indigenous languages and biodiversity are subject to distinct drivers, they are not isolated from one another; the loss of the last speaker of a language entails not only the loss of names of flora, fauna, and places, but also the deep cultural interrelation with them that the language represents, embodies and transmits. If losing biodiversity means the piece-by-piece erosion of our planet, when we lose a language, we lose an entire world in an instant.

People and Place: It's all in the name

Any map is a glossary of cultures; a tapestry of names in languages that resonate across the world’s diverse land and seascapes. There's an adage in Cornwall, my own home: By Tre, Pol and Pen, shall ye know Cornishmen. Tre depicts homesteads and farms; Pol a pool or body of water; and Pen a headland. From Penzance to Polperro to Trebah, a lot of local history is contained in these names.

Our world’s Protected Areas are no exception, despite their often complicated and contradictory histories with Indigenous peoples and local communities. The iconic North America national park, ‘Yosemite’, derives fromÌýuzamati,Ìýthe Miwok word for grizzly bear; whereas the Atacama’s picture-postcard ‘Parinacota’ National Park means ‘lake of flamingos’ in Aymara.

Photo: Charlie Tokeley, Parinacota.

Ìý

Toponyms often hint at elements of a place that are remarkable for a particular culture (whether bears in Miwok mythology, or flamingos for their economic and ritual uses in Andean culture), or hint at the structure of societies that carry the language. Chomolungma, meaning ‘Goddess Mother of the World’ in Tibetan, represents a very different relationship with the world’s highest peak to the name ‘Mount Everest’, indicating the British culture of the 19^th century - hot off the heels of the Industrial Revolution - that sought the domination and subversion of nature. The renaming of places by colonist societies is contested for this very reason; it imposes one worldview over another, preexisting, one.

Speaking the language therefore allows one to read the landscape differently. Every language represents an encyclopedia of mythology, resource use, and sociological order, which imparts unique values—and therefore emotional and ontological relationships—to the landscape.

Bigger than words: languages are contested realities

But the link between linguistic diversity and biodiversity is about far more than preserving indigenous placenames and creating encyclopaedias of indigenous and local names (as worthy as these pursuits are). UNESCO’s Resolution noted ‘the value and the diversity of the cultures and the form of social organisation of indigenous peoples and their holistic traditional knowledge of their lands, natural resources and environment’. It is within this very holistic nature of knowledge systems – these interconnected webs of being and knowing – that languages operate as the connecting matter.

Sociolinguist Dell Hymes wrote that ‘the spoken word... represents the shared perceptual experience’ of a linguistic community. Its ‘speech economy’ (the repository of words) and ‘means of speech’ (how and when they are applied) are perfectly adapted to the cultural world of the community. In more concrete terms, languages are the product of specific cultures and knowledge systems which may only partially overlap with other knowledge systems and cultures. While many words can be translated directly from one knowledge system to another, their precise meaning and ‘weight’ is may be imbued with all sorts of cultural implications, histories and contexts in either language. As just one example, it’s been observed that Inuigguits of northwest Greenland have multiple words for ‘seal’ based on its position or state of motion, but no general word for ‘seal’. Learning these words in Inuigguit involves learning about the seal's behaviour; with the language in turn reproducing the culture.

Think of it as a Ven-diagram, where each circle is a culture with a perfectly-adapted language. When a language is lost, there is a whole portion of the culture that can no longer be communicated, perceived and transmitted with words from the other. The boundaries that contain that circle of knowledge, and the glue that connects and positions its elements, is lost forever and the relationship between elements is loosened. Languages allow for the preservation of traditional knowledge, such as myths and stories, as well as social and environmental practices and relationships, strengthening the sense of territorial identity.

Photo: Charlie Tokeley, Guyana.

Ìý

Towards a language of conservation

With the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022, the role of Traditional Knowledge has garnered increasing attention. In recent years, the mainstreaming of categories of conservation that are informed and guided by traditional knowledge – including types of Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs) and Indigenous and Traditional Territories (ITTs) – are helping to shift the balance towards more equitable governance in conservation. This is not only because it is ethically the right thing to do – ensuring that land tenure and access to traditional lands and waters is rightfully secured – but also, it is hoped, because Indigenous peoples and local communities can better govern and conserve these resources. A key enabling factor to ensure the success of many Indigenous and locally-led initiatives is the preservation and strengthening of Indigenous and local languages, which perpetuate the diverse, locally-adapted systems, histories, identities and practices which promise a shift in the way conservation is done.

So how can we approach this challenge? We know that we can’t easily draw a line around conservation; the drivers of biodiversity decline expand into all corners of our global existence, encompassing the economy, education, poverty, food systems, gender rights, and more. The Programme of Work on Article 8j of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) urges all actors to 'support efforts by indigenous peoples and local communities to strengthen the intergenerational transmission, use and revitalisation, and enhancement of indigenous and local languages and traditional knowledge, including in formal and informal education settings...', but how should this be achieved? Perhaps one option is to ensure linguistic mainstreaming in conservation programmes, as is now common-place with gender responsive programming, for example.

Special efforts could be made to develop quotas for indigenous language speakers in key roles within conservation projects, to develop indigenous-language workspaces which create a 'safe space' for minority languages to thrive, or to conduct training on the role and importance of linguistic diversity in conservation. In many parts of the world, strong stigmas are still held against indigenous and local languages, often perpetuated by oppressive education policies that sought or still seek linguistic homogeneity. Even recently, when I canvassed our Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹ûÏÖ³¡Ö±²¥ team to count the languages we collectively speak, many respondents mentioned only the dominant languages and omitted 'other local languages', as if they were of a lower status. Perhaps programming for linguistic diversity could help turn the tide, little by little?

Another option would be to explore closer partnerships between education, cultural and conservation sectors. Perhaps actors specialising in Intercultural and Bilingual Education (IBE) could combine timelines, funds and approaches with biodiversity conservation initiatives to pursue a more holistic approach to supporting a territory or population. Through acting in coordination to alleviate multiple pressures affecting target sites – linguistic and biodiversity hotspots - perhaps each actor can focus on achieving their particular goals and complying with donor and partner requirements, whilst ensuring that the impact of their actions is complemented by an alliance of actors working holistically?

Conserving diversity

My own journey in biodiversity conservation has spanned academic research as a social anthropologist, hands-on design and implementation of indigenous language programmes, and organisation of diverse cultural and education programmes. I've never doubted that I'm a conservationist, but I've often asked myself what I'm working to conserve. Over the years, I've recognised that diversity - in all its forms - has a deep, inherent, and inseparable value. As every being interprets every other being according to its own unique physiological limitations, every culture interprets our world through its own prism of reality; there is an inherent value in conserving these realities, both scientific and non-scientific.

One thing is for sure; the dual crises of biodiversity decline and linguistic diversity decline cannot be solved in isolation. The conservation world must determine – with full and effective participation and leadership from indigenous peoples themselves – means to address linguistic diversity more effectively, to ensure that Indigenous peoples and local communities are enabled and supported in their role as leaders in this new conservation era.