Past event
Loss, damage and lessons from the past: a conversation on biocultural and linguistic landscapes STACEES cross-disciplinary event, co-organised with Bonn Working Group on Alternative Sustainabilities (Germany)
In a world increasingly affected by climate change, maintaining biodiversity relies on enhanced and targeted conservation efforts, in coordination with robust adaptation and innovation support. This is the core message from the first collaborative workshop between the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2021. In November 2022, indigenous voices, perspectives and strategies played an increasingly prominent role in COP27 discussions on the climate crisis and biodiversity conversation, with loss and damage continuing as a central theme.
The direction of these major debates and negotiations shows that there is momentum to deepen our collective understandings of traditional local knowledge systems and indigenous approaches to environmental management. While visions for a more sustainable future include innovative ‘smart' technologies, recent decades have also seen the revitalisation of traditional infrastructures and approaches based on ancestral, local knowledge in many contexts across the globe. Cross-disciplinary conversations about loss and damage are urgently needed, as are conversations about protection, risk and revitalisation. Ongoing discussions about protecting diversity will benefit from a focus that goes beyond questions of environmental management, to the broader knowledge systems underpinning our ways of understanding and communicating with each other and the world around us. STACEES and the WG AS are delighted to co-host two talks on this topic:
Biocultural Heritage in Llanos de Moxos, Bolivia
Carla Jaimes Betancourt, University of Bonn
This talk focuses on the Llanos de Moxos in Bolivia — one of the most extensive savannas in South America and home to incredible linguistic and ethnic diversity (22 protected areas, 18 indigenous territories, and 3 Ramsar sites). Based on archaeological research, the talk explores the local history of natural resource management.
The human-nature relationship in Southern Arabia
Janet Watson, Said Baquir, Abdullah al-Mahri, University of Leeds
This talk examines the effects of erosion of the traditional human-nature on local language, taking as a case study Dhofar in Southern Oman, home to a family of endangered Modern South Arabian languages.
Full abstracts and bios: www.stacees.ac.uk