Page 152 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

12 Biodiversity and Sustainability Communication 135

Furthermore, especially the African wilderness areas are crucial refuges for
cultural diversity, in which a large number of indigenous languages and religions
are preserved (Pretty et al. 2009).

Biological and Cultural Diversity and Its Communication

Biological diversity in cultural landscapes, especially agrobiodiversity, is a result of
cultural processes. Humans have bred and colonised the plants and animals that
were best fitted to the living conditions in a particular environment. With their
meadows, hedgerows and field borders, cultural landscapes are rich in diverse vari-
eties and species of flora and fauna. In fact even in the rainforest, there are more
medical plants where humans have selectively logged individual trees and built
trails than in primary forest. The “culturalisation of nature” (Küster 1995: 370) and
the diversity of human ways of life make a direct contribution to biodiversity.
Cultural identity and biological diversity are closely related (Pretty et al. 2009).
Foods made from regional agricultural products or wild plants and animals and
served in season or on particular occasions give individuals a feeling of belonging
to a region or to a group. Slow Food, an organisation that is regionally anchored and
at the same time internationally active, uses this knowledge for its engagement in
preserving biodiversity. Cultural customs and rituals often make use of flora and
fauna from the surrounding area and so serve to confirm group identity. Excellent
examples here are trees, which are part of rituals in many parts of the world. Cultural
practices are a guarantee for their conservation and so also for their environment.
The ruthless degradation of biodiversity is a result of European expansion into
the southern hemisphere, colonization and the exploitation of natural resources, but
also more recently by technological developments, for example the excessive use of
nitrogen and phosphorous nutrients or the promotion of monocultures and the con-
centration on a small number of animal species by the seed and food industry (Scherr
and McNeely 2008). This also has consequences for cultural diversity, as it indi-
rectly impinges on the basis for its existence.
In turn cultural homogenisation and the disappearance of traditional ways of life
accelerate the loss of biodiversity. There is a loss of knowledge for example of how
to cultivate plants in a particular micro-climate (e.g. the Alps) or of old varieties of
vegetables or of the use of wild plants (FAO 2005). Accelerated by new cultural
practices brought about by mass tourism and mass production, this development has
over a number of decades led to a radical reduction and a comparatively small number
of domestic species and varieties of vegetable foods (FAO 1996; Thrupp 2000). The
same holds for domestic livestock. When time and personal relationships and the
quality of animal foods no longer play a role in the relationship between humans
and animals, then certain species will no longer be kept (TGRDEU 2010).
Cultural diversity is thus not only to be seen from a perspective of cultural products
and forms of expression that are a common heritage of humankind to be preserved
(UNESCO 2008). It is also a condition for the conservation of biodiversity – and not