Globalisation and policies towards cultural diversity

This paper asserts that diversity in indigenous communities tends to correlate with biological diversity and to support it therefore offers more than just cultural value. It therefore sets out the main preconditions for improved support by donors and governments.

Policy conclusions:

• globalisation is a major cause of the rapid erosion of cultural diversity, which should be as much a source of concern as the loss of biological diversity
• development agencies give low priority to maintenance of traditional cultural values, and these are usually decoupled from conservation of biological resources. Ethnic diversity is strongly correlated with biological diversity at present, although this link is being eroded wherever indigenous peoples inhabit environments with high resource-values. Valuable indigenous knowledge is being lost with this erosion
• the United Nations and the World Bank have recently been developing their policies on strengthening indigenous rights, while some national governments such as Canada, have been building participatory mechanisms for determining resource access and ceding territory to indigenous communities
• a global rights-based framework for ethnic minorities that recognises issues of both control of natural resources and cultural transmission remains to be developed. Donors should support national governments to maintain the habitat of indigenous peoples and reinforce cultural values through promotion of educational materials in minority languages. Controls on multinationals and exploitative tourism can assist the effective adaptation of such communities to the external world