How are indigenous cultures connected to the conservation of biodiversity?

Question

How are indigenous cultures connected to the conservation of biodiversity?

Answer 1

Throughout Latin America (though the same is true in many other regions of the world) indigenous people have been cornered to some of the most isolated parts of their original territories. That has meant that they had to adapt to available resources, learn how to use them and make the best of what they had. It also meant that they ended up having control of something that used to have no social value at all: biodiversity. So today the governing groups have to negotiate with indigenous people in order to have access to and to guarantee the preservation of the last frontier of biodiversity.