characteristics.^6 The point of a global-level
index is to offer the broadest kind of guid-
ance about the status of and large-scale
trends affecting whatever is being meas-
ured. In line with this, the IBCD, as it now
stands, is only a general guide to the cur-
rent status of biocultural diversity on the
largest scales (national on up). We are
working on expanding the index to include
time-series data that will indicate trends in
biocultural diversity. Moreover, we fully
recognise that a complete understanding of
biocultural diversity can only be attained by
analyzing it at allscales. Obviously, in many
countries biocultural diversity varies widely
from place to place, and this within-country
variation will not be apparent at the scale
on which the IBCD operates.
Uses of the IBCD
Why should anyone try to put numbers on
biocultural diversity in the first place? We
certainly do not claim that an index such as
the IBCD captures the richness of the
world’s biocultural fabric— the lived-in depth
of feeling that traditional indigenous com-
munities express through their cultural prac-
tices, or the sense of place that many non-
indigenous people feel toward where they
live, to give two examples. Rather, the value
of an IBCD and similar measures is largely
practical and political. Pinpointing the
world’s areas richest in biocultural diversity
helps raise the awareness of the general
public (and opinion-leading organisations
such as the news media) about what is at
stake. That can help lead to changes in per-
sonal attitudes toward cultures and places
not their own, with the effect (one hopes)
of engendering more understanding and
respect among people everywhere. That, in
turn, should lead to more enlightened public
policy.
In any national-level ranking system there is
a risk that some people may be tempted to
write off lower-ranked countries as being
“less valuable” in terms of the characteris-
tic(s) at issue. As far as the IBCD goes, this
would be a fundamental mistake: every
country’s biocultural diversity, no matter
where it ranks, is an important part of the
global whole, and the global whole is inher-
ently worth preserving. Having said that,
however, the IBCD could be used to help
prioritise strategic investments in biocultural
diversity conservation. The three “core
regions” identified above are in that sense
analogous to several well-known schemes
for identifying the world’s most important
area for species conservation that have
been developed over the last decade,
including biodiversity hotspots,^7 a globally
representative network of ecoregions,^8
endemic bird areas,^9 and centers of plant
diversity.^10The IBCD could also be adapted to play an
important role in fulfilling the goals of the
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
The CBD has set ambitious targets, to be
met by 2010, for significantly reducing the
rate of biodiversity loss worldwide. In
February 2004, the CBD’s seventh
Conference of the Parties (COP7) proposed
a suite of quantitative indicators to be used
in measuring progress toward hitting the
2010 target. One of the goals of the CBD is
to “maintain [the] socio-cultural diversity of
indigenous and local communities”.^11 In line
with this, COP7 specifically recognised the
“status of traditional knowledge, innovations
and practices” as one of its focal areas, and
identified the “status and trends of linguistic
diversity and numbers of speakers of indige-
nous languages” as a possible indicator.^12
The IBCD could be expanded to include
time-series data on linguistic diversity in
order to help make this index useful for
CBD purposes. It also may be possible to
incorporate into the IBCD other measures of
change in the intergenerational transmission
of traditional environmental knowledge.Conclusion
The IBCD is the first quantitative measure