Biodiversidad, cultura y territorio

Abstract

After several decades of systematic nature destruction, the discourse on biodiversity is the answer of what might be called “the irruption of the biological”, i.e. the biotic issue surviving as the core issue of the modern order. In this regard, the biodiversity discourse declares itself the sponsor of saving nature from destructive practices and capable to institute a culture of conservation instead. Nevertheless, there remain gaps in the discourse, which have been intended to be fi lled with discussions addressing lately the relevance of the local knowledge, the ways of life –habits and customs– and the traditional production, within the frame that supports the meaning of biodiversity. On the one hand, for industrialized countries governments and international governmental institutions, traditional knowledge is an asset of the humankind, which improved becomes a technological innovation that may be subject to patent and fi nally traded, without any benefit to the owners of the basis knowledge. On the other hand, for peasants, intellectuals, and local knowledge activists, ways of life and tradicional production are the basis for rebuilding the peasants’ and natives’ territory, to strengthen the limited independence and self-suffi ciency they live with, but with their active involvement in the determination of everything that affects them. Based on these considerations, spaces are being built to provide an answer to privatization, an answer based on the concept of “the communal” (Grain, 2005).