Understanding aand mmeasuring bbiocultural ddiversity

The IIBCD— aa mmeasure oof tthe wworld’s bbiocultural ddiversity

David HHarmon aand JJonathan LLoh

Abstract:The relationships between biological and cultural diversity, and the growing threats they face,

have drawn increasing attention from scholars over the last decade. Analyses of these relationships are

beginning to crystallise around the concept of biocultural diversity,the total variety exhibited by the

world’s natural and cultural systems. Here, we outline an index of biocultural diversity (IBCD), the first

attempt to quantify global biocultural diversity by means of a country-level index. The index uses five indi-

cators: the number of languages, religions, and ethnic groups (for cultural diversity); and the number of

bird/mammal species and of plant species (for biological diversity). The IBCD is calculated in three ways:

an unadjusted richness measure, a measure of richness adjusted for land area and a measure of richness

adjusted for the size of the human population. These measures, when analyzed in concert, indicate three

“core regions” of exceptional biocultural diversity: the Amazon Basin, Central Africa, and

Indomalaysia/Melanesia.

TThe relationships between biological and

cultural diversity, and the growing threats

they face in common, have drawn increasing

attention from scholars, activists, and public

officials over the last decade.^1 It is now not

unusual to read prominent (though often

rather superficial) declarations of the impor-

tance of preserving biological andcultural

diversity as a central conservation goal.

Concerns about these dual realms of diversi-

ty have found their way into major interna-

tional conservation communiqués (e.g., the

Durban Accord of the 2003 World Parks

Congress) and are enshrined in capstone

international instruments, such as the

Convention on Biological Diversity.

Underlying these generalised expressions of

concern are efforts at deepening the theo-

retical understanding of how biological and

cultural diversity are related. Scholarly analy-

sis in this field is beginning to crystallise

around the concept of biocultural diversity,

the total variety exhibited by the world’s nat-

ural and cultural systems (Maffi 2001).

Biocultural diversity includes biological diver-

sity at all its levels, from genes to popula-

tions to species to ecosystems; cultural

diversity, ranging from individual ideas to

languages to entire cultures; and the inter-

action of these with the abiotic or geophysi-

cal features of the earth. A basic premise of

first-generation scholarship on biocultural

diversity has been that biological and cultur-

al diversity affect one another in important

ways. Studies to date have focused on

establishing geographical correlations

between the two by identifying areas of

overlap, investigating the mechanisms

through which they may affect each other

(e.g., how language may be related to long-

term environmental management in indige-

nous communities), and analyzing the

threats to them.^2

For the past several years the NGO

Terralingua has been working on several

fronts to assess the world’s biocultural diver-

sity. One thing that has been missing so far

from a global assessment is a quantitative

measurement of biocultural diversity. To fill

that gap, we have developed an index of

biocultural diversity (IBCD). The IBCD uses a

combination of five indicators of biocultural

diversity to establish rankings for 238 coun-

tries and territories:

the number of languages, religions, and

ethnic groups present within each country

as a proxy for its cultural diversity; and