We often hear about the multitude of environmental challenges facing the world: be it water, energy and/or biodiversity crises. But it is not only the earth’s physical and biological resources that are at peril, but also cultural diversity.

Kaapse Klopse Carnival in Cape Town, South Africa. Behind the diversity of performers is Table Mountain, part of the Cape floristic Region (one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots).
[image by Yoseph Araya © copyright Yoseph Araya]

Simply defined culture could mean the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behaviour that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations. Cultural diversity is a driving force of development, not only in respect of economic growth, but also as a means of leading a more fulfilling intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual life. [UNESCO defintion]

The disappearance of cultural diversity can at times be even worse than that of other biological diversity. For example, Professor Sutherland in his paper, Parallel extinction risk and global distribution of languages and species, notes: "Over the past 500 years, about 4.5% of the total number of described languages have disappeared, compared with 1.3% of birds and 1.9% of mammals."

Often the factors that determine the diversity of life and culture are very much similar. For example forest cover, tropical climates, heterogeneous topography and prevalence of pathogens are known to be associated with higher cultural diversity.

This emphasises the need to address the world’s heritage of biological, cultural and linguistic diversity together - as biocultural diversity.

Why?

There are many compelling scientific reasons for conservation of biocultural diversity – some of which relate to ecosystem of goods and services vital for our very existence on earth.

Moreover, extinction is forever, as the epitaph at the death of the very last Hawaiian snail in captivity sombrely reminds:

Here lies Partulina turgida: 1.5 million years BC to January 1996”

Lastly, on a more personal level, the earth is a very complex and fascinating place to live in and appreciate. The loss of a species, or the loss of human language diminishes the beauty of the world simply by removing a little of that complexity).

What can be done?

We should combine resources from all walks of life and work together to save our biocultural diversity. There are many approaches that could be tried.

Bringing awareness, documenting and sharing diversity knowledge go a long way in alerting experts as well as the general public.

Another approach is to explore new ways of linking cultural and biological diversity conservation schemes. There is currently growing interest as such e.g. religious communities are increasingly being involved into conservation activities and activism.

See, for example, BBC News reports on Faith leaders urging climate curbs or Beyond Belief: Linking faith and conservation from the WWF.

Watch: International Union for Conservation of Nature: Live Culture - An expert speaks

Not least is getting involved when possible or otherwise supporting organizations working towards this aim. Some notable examples include Terralingua and Global Diversity Fund.

Last word:

The well-versed advertisement for Patek Philippe, the Swiss watch company goes: “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely take care of it for the next generation.”

Taking this analogue, it would be a great shame (if not a crime) to bequeath an impoverished earth to our future generations.

Find out more

Saving Britain’s Past

BBC News: In defence of 'lost' languages

Terralingua: Index of Biocultural Diversity

Ecological influences on human behavioural diversity: A review of recent findings
Daniel Nettle, writing in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 2009

Parallel extinction risk and global distribution of languages and species
W J Sutherland, writing in Nature 423

Introducing Environment
Alice Peasgood and Mark Goodwin, Open University/Oxford University

OpenLearn: Diversity and difference in communication - free learning materials from the Open University.

About the author

Dr Yoseph Araya is a plant ecologist and associate lecturer at the Open University. He works on the biology and conservation of South African fynbos vegetation. Environmental education and the role of the public in research is one of his key interests.

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What has been the highlight of the new series for you?

Dick Strawbridge

Most days' filming mean lots of waiting around or rushing to and from locations. I never tire of spending time by the sea, so I when I get moments between really interesting conversations, or delivering pieces to camera, when the rest of the team are sorting out problems, I find those moments truly awesome as I get to enjoy the sea air.

Why do you think it’s important that we understand more about our coastline?

As an island nation, the sea has played a huge part in shaping who we are. Our coastline involves so many different people, buildings, structures, animals, environments, that taking the time to understand the variety and diversity helps us reconcile that, as a nation, we have to celebrate our differences as well as our common ground.

What is your favourite area/beach/aspect of the UK coastline?

I have always loved Giants Causeway and the coast of County Antrim as I grew up enjoying them and they really show land and the sea coming together in a fairly violent mix of rocks and waves. However, I have to say that, now, the couple of miles from the China clay works on Par beach to the harbour at Polkerris on the south coast of Cornwall (just over the hill from my smallholding) have to be my favourite beach/coastal path/harbour/rockpools.

The Giant's Causeway.
[image © copyright Photos.com]

Coast has grown into something of a national institution – why do you think people are so interested/passionate about the coast?

I defy anyone to watch Coast and not learn something. Our coastline has such variety and amazing beauty that there is always something for everyone. There is something there for anyone with a pulse.

How did you get involved with presenting Coast?

I was lucky enough to have made several engineering series for the BBC and had made some short films on D-Day and the war in the Far East, so I was invited to take part in a couple of Coast programmes with engineering or military history connections. It's great fun and, anytime I’m asked if I’m interested, I always say "yes" as I know I’ll learn lots and meet some cracking people.

What have you personally gained from your involvement with the series?

Spending time in a coastal resort, or in a specific location by the sea, covering a story for Coast, gives you the time to appreciate an area that you would probably pass through with barely a second thought. More and more patches of our coastline are becoming special for me as I get a chance to really know them.

Where would you like to see Coast go next?

When I was growing up, the map of the world was covered in pink countries – I reckon it would be great to look at all the places we came ashore to conquer and build the empire and commonwealth. There will be lots of examples of hardship, ingenuity, perseverance, and people with stories we have never heard.

Do you have any Open University connections outside Coast?

My daughter is a singer songwriter and recently decided to take some OU language and psychology modules and two of my sisters did OU degrees and masters degrees whilst working.

Find out more

Watch videos, order the new Coast booklet and find out why this series of Coast goes further than any other: Coast on Open2

I have periodically been harping on about the great benefits of studying history in these blogs – and I stick by all of them. Perhaps, though, I haven’t been quite so clear about the disadvantages that sometimes accompany being an historian.

In the past few years, for example, I have been experiencing a certain level of minor social embarrassment when watching plays at the theatre. Not always – I stress – and not caused either by any repellent physiological problem. It occurs solely when I am watching a play written at some time before the last decade or so, and it generally becomes more acute the further back in time the piece was composed.

And the simple fact is that I laugh (or, on one occasion, gasped) when practically nobody else in the audience is laughing (or gasping). This is, I assure you, no inexplicable nervous tic, but rather is entirely down to my profession. Because the thing is that I’m able to contextualize the writing within the period in which it was composed, as I suppose relatively few of the audience can. At The Importance of Being Earnest, this exchange (amongst others) between Jack Worthing and Lady Bracknell struck me – and no-one else – as splendidly ticklish:

Lady B: What are your politics?
Jack: Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Unionist.

"Hahaha," I laughed, amid the silence. Thinking: "That would have been very funny in 1895." Later, however, I was mortified to imagine my fellow audience members wondering of each other who the bloke with the inappropriate cackle was.

This was not a one-off, however, as I have also descended into solo guffaws at The Revenger’s Tragedy, HMS Pinafore, and The Cherry Orchard. And whilst it helps that all of the above (yes, even the Chekhov) have comic moments, that advantage is largely cancelled out if one laughs at the "unfunny’"bits.

Man laughing.
[image by Thomas Hawk, some rights reserved]

At a Shakespeare play this is not quite such a trial. An unaccompanied chuckle at Shakespeare is more like boasting to the audience. As if to say, "I understand the complex language here, that you – poor sap – do not." When the language is much simpler, much more akin to how we speak in the twenty-first century, the solo giggler is immediately marked out as an idiot.

All the same, I wouldn’t be without the understanding that underpins my social faux pas. It has enriched my enjoyment of all art forms hugely. This is not merely a matter of being the jovial twit at the theatre: I could say the same of various poems, songs, paintings, films, or novels. The essential point is that it is history that has opened up such things for me. It is just regrettable that it can cause social side effects of such a laughable kind. 

Taking it further

• The arts past and present
• Film and television history
• Shakespeare: text and performance 
• Repetition and Deviation
  
  
   

About the author

Dr Stuart Mitchell has spent seventeen years teaching history in higher education - the last fifteen of which have been with the Open University, amongst other institutions. Currently, he is working on the new history MA, and tutors on Exploring History: Medieval to Modern (A200) and Total War and Social Change (AA312). He also serves as the university's academic consultant on the BBC television programme, Timewatch. His first book, The Brief and Turbulent Life of Modernising Conservatism, was published in 2006.

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