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Language: A Resource for Nature
Luisa Maffi
The concept of biocultural diversity is becoming increasingly familiar in environ-
mental conservation circles internationally, especially since finding its way into
international instruments such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
after the 1992 Rio Summit (UN Conference on Environment and Development).
Article 8(j) of the CBD is specifically concerned with indigenous peoples, tradi-
tional knowledge and related rights. It states that each Contracting Party must:
Subject to its national legislation, respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innova-
tions and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional life-
styles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and
promote their wider application with the approval and involvement of the holders of
such knowledge, innovations and practices and encourage the equitable sharing of the
benefits arising from the utilization of such knowledge, innovations and practices.Indigenous organizations have been very active vis-à-vis the implementation of
Article 8(j) at the meetings of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD.
At the latest meeting (COP IV, 4–15 May 1998, Bratislava, Slovakia), they suc-
ceeded in passing a decision that calls for the creation of a continuous working
group in charge of advising on the measures necessary to protect indigenous
peoples’ knowledge, innovations and practices. In spite of persisting concerns
about being actually enabled to participate in the working group and affect its
recommendations, indigenous organizations consider this decision a success on
the road to full recognition of the importance of their environmental knowledge
and practices for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.
While the processes surrounding the CBD have been in the spotlight, it is
perhaps less well known that the first international document to incorporate an
integrated notion of biocultural diversity was the Declaration of Belém of the
International Society of Ethnobiology, elaborated in 1988 at the First Interna-
tional Congress of Ethnobiology in Belém, Brazil. Aware of the simultaneous
L Maffi, Laguage: A resource for nature, in: Nature and Resources, The UNESCO Journal on the Envi-
ronment and Natural Resources Research, 34(4), pp. 12–21 © UNESCO, used by permission of
UNESCO.