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Definitions of culture now focused on the importance of diverse knowledge and language

systems. These discussions demonstrated a more reflexive approach than the previous

dominant environmental discourses that had focused on the protection of nature and framed

humans as the perpetrators of environmental damage. Such discussions were in part a

reaction to environmental protectionist discourses. The discussions also acknowledged that

the framework within which environmental management operates is limited in its scope of

ecological knowledge (in the case of most global environmental management it is the natural

sciences) and management practices. Furthermore, the discussion acknowledged that any

human action on the environment is a social and cultural expression. This is a discussion I

will contribute to in the next chapter in relation to sustainability. These critiques opened the

way for alternative notions of the environment and environmental management. The 2001

Declaration on Cultural Diversity had already recommended that science (Western/modern)

draw its inspiration from traditional knowledge in order to foster ‘synergies between modern

science and local knowledge’ (in Stoczkowski 2009, p. 10). Both indigenous and traditional

cultures were to represent this diversity. The diverse relationships with the natural world and

stewardship of the environment that many indigenous and traditional societies maintain were

brought to the attention of the international community and proposed as part of the solution to

contemporary problems. As the statement indicates, knowledge and language were the

mediums through which unique modes of being within an environment were expressed and

maintained. This included ways of managing natural resources, as well as the meanings,

explanations and identity formed through culture/nature relationships.

Diversity therefore became important not only for the preservation of the cultures

themselves (identity, meaning, language, unique relationships with nature and rights to

resources) but also for the expansion of a knowledge base for environmental management.

Cultural diversity was afforded the task of protecting biological diversity and presented as an

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