Mapping Biocultural and Economic Diversity … Everywhere : RCC Perspectives 2012, no. 9: Why Do We Value Diversity? Biocultural Diversity in a Global Context: Mapping Biocultural and Economic Diversity … Everywhere

• Main Author: St. Martin, Kevin
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Munich, Germany 2012
• Subjects: landscape transformation; population; environmental knowledge; capitalism; conservation; indigenous peoples; management; Norway; Northern Norway; sami
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5282/rcc/6230; http://www.environmentandsociety.org/node/6230/

This article examines the practice of mapping biocultural diversity. The practice has been criticised for foregrounding conservation rather than self-determination, and preservation rather than cultural or ecological invention. While the maps succeed in depicting a global reality of biocultural diversity hotspots, they often relegate diversity to locations beyond the frontiers of capitalism and modernity. In response to this tendency, the article shows how the Sami of northern Norway are creating new openings and opportunities for more localized management systems based on local environmental knowledge.