13 Policy Matters.qxp

Understanding aand mmeasuring bbiocultural ddiversity

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

ing biological diversity and increasing cultur-

al diversity, as represented by number of

languages spoken in a given region. One

minor exception to this relationship occurs

in DZ 10, the highest biodiversity zone,

where the number of languages drops off

slightly. However, this is likely due to the

relatively small area of this diversity zone.

Despite this, the correlation still remains

strong.

Table 1.Density of languages (languages per Km^2 ) of each of the plant diversity zones.

Diversity zone number of languages area (km^2 ) Languages per km^2

1 10 35936929.00 2.78265E-07

2 72 11141286.00 6.46245E-06

3 264 13132142.00 2.01033E-05

4 578 17344368.00 3.33249E-05

5 1057 11386278.00 9.2831E-05

6 738 6088899.40 0.000121204

7 1283 5616381.10 0.000228439

8 1336 3084807.40 0.000433090

9 654 880116.98 0.000743083

10 313 493742.63 0.000633934

Total 6305 105104951.00

Figure 2.Relation between plant diversity classes and language diversity per unit area.

diversity area

language
density
(languages
per square
kilometer)

0.0009

0.0008

0.0007

0.0006

0.0005

0.0004

0.0003

0.0002

0.0001

0

y=4E-7x3.3095

R2=0.9873