SUSTAINING CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
IN A RAPIDLY CHANGING WORLD: LESSONS FOR GLOBAL POLICY

Symposium Sponsors

Sustaining Cultural and Biological Diversity in a Rapidly Changing World: Lessons for Global Policy is co-organized by the American Museum of Natural History’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, IUCN-CEESP Theme on Culture and Conservation, Terralingua, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. This symposium is made possible by major support and organizational assistance from the Christensen Fund. Additional support has been provided by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Mack Lipkin Man and Nature Series, Oak Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.

The Center for Biodiversity and Conservation
In 1993, the American Museum of Natural History created the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation (CBC) to enhance the use of scientific data to mitigate threats to biodiversity. The CBC develops strategic partnerships to expand scientific knowledge about diverse species in critical ecosystems, and to apply this knowledge to conservation; builds professional and institutional capacities for biodiversity conservation; and heightens public understanding and stewardship for biodiversity. Working both locally and around the world, the CBC develops model programs that integrate research, education, and outreach so that people — a key factor in the rapid loss of biodiversity — will become participants in its conservation.

The CBC’s programs focus on areas of the world where biodiversity is richest and most threatened, as well as on taxa that have traditionally been neglected in the conservation process, such as invertebrates. Raising awareness and promoting conservation action are also CBC imperatives, and through symposia, workshops, and publications we help to inform the public about biodiversity issues. To make the complex political and economic decisions necessary for the protection of global biological resources, people must have the scientific tools to identify and understand the mechanisms behind the threats to biodiversity. The CBC’s role is to equip the world community to use these tools effectively. http://cbc.amnh.org/

IUCN Theme on Culture and Conservation
The IUCN Theme on Culture and Conservation (TCC), was set up in 2004 by the Commission on Environmental, Economic, and Social Policy (CEESP). It emerged in response to resolutions put forward at the 2004 World Conservation Congress. The Theme recognizes the importance of culture in environmental conservation and aims to promote a greater awareness of these relations within IUCN and the broader "conservation community." It also seeks to promote and support field-based activities investigating the contextual relations between culture and conservation; to draw lessons and methodological insight from that work; to support the development of international policies (e.g., CBD) sensitive to the cultural dimensions of conservation; and to encourage the programmes and structures of IUCN and the broader "conservation community" to adopt a complex view of culture, devote resources to understanding the cultural bases of conservation practice, and incorporate such understanding in conservation policy and practice.
http://www.iucn.org/themes/ceesp/

Terralingua
Terralingua is an international NGO funded in 1996, whose mission is to support the integrated protection, maintenance and restoration of the biocultural diversity of life - the world's biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity - through an innovative program of research, education, policy recommendations, and on-the-ground projects. Terralingua works with other international organizations, academic institutions, museums, and the general public to promote better understanding and appreciation of diversity in nature, culture, and language and to foster action to sustain our biocultural heritage. http://www.terralingua.org/

Wenner-Gren
The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Inc. was created and endowed in 1941 as The Viking Fund, Inc. by Axel Wenner-Gren. The Foundation’s mission is to advance significant and innovative basic research about humanity’s cultural and biological origins, development, and variation and to foster the creation of an international community of research scholars in anthropology. The Foundation fulfills its mission through a variety of grant programs that support individual research, collaborative research, training, and conferences/workshops as well as the preservation of anthropological archives. http://www.wennergren.org/

The Christensen Fund
The Christensen Fund is a private independent foundation, founded in 1957, that believes in the power of biological and cultural diversity to sustain and enrich a world faced with great change and uncertainty. Its mission is to buttress the efforts of people and institutions who believe in a bio-diverse world infused with artistic expression, and who work to secure ways of life and landscapes that are beautiful, bountiful, and resilient. The Fund pursues this mission through place-based work in regions chosen for their potential to withstand and recover from the global erosion of diversity. It focuses on backing the efforts of locally-recognized community custodians of this heritage, and their alliances with scholars, artists, advocates and others. It also funds international efforts to build global understanding of these issues. The Fund works primarily through grant making, as well as through capacity and network building, knowledge generation, collaboration and mission-related investments; seeking out imaginative, thoughtful and occasionally odd partners to learn with. http://www.christensenfund.org/