 | |
| Founded | 1996 |
|---|---|
| Type | Non-governmental organization |
| Focus | Indigenous rights,biocultural diversity |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Luisa Maffi and Dave Harmon, founders |
| Website | terralingua.org |
Terralingua is a 501(c)(3)non-profit organization under U.S. tax law (#38–3291259) and a registerednon-profit society in Canada based onSalt Spring Island inVancouver,British Columbia whose mission is to support the integrated protection, maintenance and restoration of thebiocultural diversity of life. Created in 1996, Terralingua's foundersLuisa Maffi and Dave Harmon pioneered the concept and field ofBiocultural Diversity, building on emergent ideas about the links betweenbiological andcultural diversity.
In 2001, Terralingua received the first foundation grant ever given explicitly forBiocultural Diversity research and applications—an unsolicitedFord Foundation grant that allowed the non-profit to establish a long-term program of work focused on five areas: Mapping biocultural diversity, measuring and monitoring biocultural diversity, maintaining biocultural diversity, networking for biocultural diversity, and promoting policies for biocultural diversity.
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In 1996, the same year Terralingua launched its operations, it organized its first conference onbiocultural diversity called "Endangered Languages, Endangered Knowledge, Endangered Environments." Held at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, the conference brought together internationally recognized researchers and practitioners in thesocial,natural,linguistics, andbehavioral sciences, as well asIndigenous thinkers and activists, to discuss the “converging extinction crisis” of thebiocultural diversity of life.
Within two years of being founded, Terralingua began to receive invitations to collaborate with major environmental and cultural organizations includingWorld Wildlife Fund,United Nations Environment Programme,United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), theConvention on Biological Diversity, theMillennium Ecosystem Assessment, and other international, academic and research-based institutions, and museums.
In 2003, Terralingua developed the first educational booklet onBiocultural Diversity, in collaboration withUNESCO[1] Sharing a World of Difference: The Earth’s Linguistic, Cultural, and Biological Diversity, along with the companion map, The World’s Biocultural Diversity: People, Languages, and Ecosystems (UNESCO, 2003). A year later, Terralingua created the firstindex jointly quantifying the global state of cultural diversity and biodiversity. The[2]Index of Biocultural Diversity independently confirmed the overlap between cultural and biological diversity based on five indicators:languages,religions, andethnic groups (forcultural diversity), andbird/mammalspecies andplant species (forbiological diversity). These indicators were selected because data were readily available for them.
In 2008, in collaboration withIUCN and theAmerican Museum of Natural History (AMNH), Terralingua co-organized a major follow-up symposium on Biocultural Diversity, "Sustaining Cultural and Biological Diversity in a Rapidly Changing World: Lessons for Public Policy", which was held at the AMNH headquarters inNew York City.
Terralingua co-developed and co-sponsored the first international policy resolution focused onBiocultural Diversity, in which they requested that theIUCN, the world’s largest conservation organization, integratecultural diversity with theconservation ofbiodiversity. TheIUCN Member Assembly passed a motion to accept this request at the4th World Conservation Congress inBarcelona,Spain in 2008.
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Terralingua works to promote the investigation of the links betweenbiological,cultural, andlinguistic diversity, as well as the adoption of an integratedbiocultural perspective on the perpetuation, maintenance and revitalization of diversity onEarth. Terralingua seeks to build bridges and synergies between groups and individuals working in support of the world's diversepeoples and theirlanguages andcultures and those working toconservespecies andecosystems.
Terralingua fosters the perpetuation of the world'slinguistic diversity in all its forms, regardless ofpolitical,demographic, orlinguistic status, and to promote respect for linguistichuman rights. The non-profit emphasizes supporting and maintaininglanguage diversity as a whole and fostering theresilience ofbioculturally diverse regions rather than on language endangerment or documentation of specific endangered languages.
Terralingua's field projects focus on restoring ecological and cultural resilience at landscape and regional levels. Through its global network, it provides information, documentation, and expertise to individuals and grassroots organizations seeking to maintain their linguistic and cultural heritage, restore the health of their environments, and uphold their human rights.
In 2001 and 2002 respectively, Terralingua's founding members published the first two books on Biocultural Diversity theory and applications. The books "On Biocultural Diversity: Linking Language, Knowledge, and the Environment"[3] and "In Light of Our Differences: How Diversity in Nature and Culture Makes Us Human"[4] were published by theSmithsonian Institution Press and are widely recognized as foundational texts.
In 2008, Terralingua developed the first index that measures trends in the persistence or loss ofTraditional Environmental Knowledge (TEK). A year later, Terralingua developed the firstIndex of Linguistic Diversity to show trends in the numbers of mother tongue speakers of the world’s languages. This allowed for a quantitative rather than anecdotal assessment of the state of the world’s languages, and revealed parallel trends in linguistic diversity and biodiversity.
In 2010, Terralingua publishedBiocultural Diversity Conservation: A Global Sourcebook (Luisa Maffi and Ellen Woodley,Earthscan)and launchedBiocultural Diversity Conservation: A Community of Practice, a companion portal to the book that was designed for researchers, professionals, policy makers, and the public.
Recent Terralingua activities include developing a broad-ranging educational campaign on Biocultural Diversity to reach academics, professionals, policy makers, schools, and the general public. Additionally, the non-profit is working on school curriculum and study guides to engage students on a range of issues related to Biocultural Diversity.
Terralingua has received grants from TheChristensen Fund, theInternational Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada, as well as support from international organizations and academic institutions. In 2007, Terralingua was given a bequest from the estate of former Terralingua member Dr. Aldon Roat, which became a principal funding source.
Terralingua's work has received attention from media over the years for its research and outreach activities, and has been featured in theNew York Times,New York Times Magazine,Wired Magazine, andNational Geographic.
In 2008, Terry Glavin, Canadian author and journalist, and winner of several science-related journalism awards wrote an article,"In Defense of Difference", where he referred to Luisa Maffi, Terralingua Director, as a leader who paved the way for “biocultural diversity” to start "...showing up with increasing frequency in the lexicon of a wide variety of scientists and academics concerned with the phenomenon of extinction." Writes Glavin, "That we are beginning to understand the intricacies of these relationships is due in no small measure to the work of Italian-born anthropologist and linguist Luisa Maffi."
Terralingua has been featured on the blogsWiserEarth,NatGeo News Watch andHuffington Post.