Chile Program Office
University of North Texas
Environmental Education, Science & Technology Bldg. 325C
PO Box 310920
Denton, TX 76203
Phone: 940-369-8211
Alt Phone: 940-565-2981
Fax: 940-565-4448
Email: chile@unt.edu
Physical Location:
EESAT Building
1704 West Mulberry St.
Research, Education and Conservation
Ethno-ornithology, ethno-ecology and Biocultural Conservation
The Omora Park has the longest continuously running bird banding program in the temperate forests of southern South America. Since 2000, the researchers, technicians and students have carried out a monthly bird banding project that has registered over 6,000 captures. Products from this line of research include not only ornithological papers, but also transdisciplinary works, such as a multiethnic bird guide and educational materials.
Loss of biological diversity is a significant challenge facing the global community. On a species level, a recent report from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN; http://www.iucn.org/) stated that 16,119 out of 40,177 recorded species are listed as threatened. That is 40 percent, and surely there are many more species similarly threatened of which we are unaware. Fortunately increasing attention has been paid to these threats facing biodiversity and greater public awareness has arisen. Unfortunately less known are the threats facing linguistic and cultural diversity. Scholarly estimates of impending loss of linguistic diversity range from 50 percent to as high as 90 percent in the coming decades.
The term biocultural diversity has been coined to account not just for biological diversity but also for linguistic and cultural diversity. Indigenous knowledge of the local environment is embedded in the indigenous language. As dominating languages, such as English or Spanish, are learned by the indigenous people, much of the embedded knowledge of native wildlife is lost through translation. Not only is indigenous knowledge of the environment is lost, but local customs and crafts that are adapted to the local region. Biological and cultural dimensions are deeply intertwined, and thus we see as an important task not only the conservation of biological diversity, but also of cultural and linguistic diversity. In our research in the sub-Antarctic Magellanic evergreen rainforest of Chile, we interact with members of the local indigenous community, most notably the Yahgan community.
One of our most recent research projects has been the production of a new book on local ethnoecological knowledge, made possible by collaboration with members of the Yahgan community. In this book we introduce the reader to the flora found in the region and introduce them in four languages: Yahgan, Spanish, English, and Scientific Latin. We depict these plants through paintings and show them alongside a distribution map illustrating where these plants can be found. The second half of the book highlights how the Yahgan community, particularly through their handcrafts, has used certain of these plants in their culture and economy. Natural landscapes are most often also cultural landscapes, and thus in our efforts to conserve natural landscapes we must also be sensitive to the cultural dimensions tied to biological space. The focus on maintaining biological and cultural diversity and the realization that these two issues are inextricable leads to richer and more successful conservation efforts.
Contributor: Jonathan Parker, Research Assistant, PhD Candidate
Department of Philosophy, University of North Texas
Excerpt from the upcoming publication on local plant-life of the sub-Antarctic Magallanic region.” The species Embothrium coccineum is also know as “Firebush”, “Muckoo“ in the Yahgan, and “ “Notro o Ciruelillo” in español. “Recording of the four different names for Embothrium coccineum”.
Photograph of the Firebush flower. Photographer Dr. James Kennedy.