Gorenflo L J, Romaine Suzanne
Department of Landscape Architecture, The Pennsylvania State University, 121 Stuckeman Family Building, University Park, PA, 16802, U.S.A.
Merton College, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 4JD, U.K.
Conserv Biol. 2021 Oct;35(5):1426-1436. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13693. Epub 2021 Apr 22.
Africa contains much of Earth's biological and cultural-linguistic diversity, but conserving this diversity is enormously challenging amid widespread poverty, expanding development, social unrest, and rapidly growing human population. We examined UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Natural World Heritage Sites (WHSs) on continental Africa and nearby islands-48 protected areas containing globally important natural or combined natural and cultural resources-to gauge the potential for enlisting Indigenous peoples in their conservation. We used geographic information system technology to identify instances where Natural WHSs co-occur with Indigenous languages, a key indicator of cultural diversity. And, we compared the geographic ranges for 4 taxa and selected freshwater species with occurrence of all Indigenous languages within Natural WHSs and subsections of WHSs covered by the geographic extent of Indigenous languages to measure the correlation between linguistic and biological diversity. Results indicated that 147 languages shared at least part of their geographic extent with Natural WHSs. Instances of co-occurrence where a WHS, a language, or both were endangered marked localities particularly deserving conservation attention. We examined co-occurrence of all languages and all species, all languages and endangered species, and endangered languages and endangered species and found a correlation between linguistic and biological diversity that may indicate fundamental links between these very different measures of diversity. Considering only endangered species or endangered languages and species reduced that correlation, although considerable co-occurrence persisted. Shared governance of government-designated reserves is applicable for natural WHSs because it capitalizes on the apparent connection between culture and nature. Natural WHSs in Africa containing speakers of Indigenous languages present opportunities to conserve both nature and culture in highly visible settings where maintaining natural systems may rely on functioning Indigenous cultural systems and vice versa.
非洲拥有地球上大部分的生物以及文化语言多样性，但在普遍贫困、发展扩张、社会动荡和人口快速增长的背景下，保护这种多样性极具挑战。我们考察了非洲大陆及附近岛屿上的联合国教科文组织自然世界遗产地（WHSs）——48个包含全球重要自然或自然与文化综合资源的保护区，以评估让原住民参与其保护工作的潜力。我们利用地理信息系统技术来确定自然世界遗产地与原住民语言同时出现的情况，这是文化多样性的一个关键指标。并且，我们将4个分类单元和选定淡水物种的地理分布范围与自然世界遗产地以及自然世界遗产地中被原住民语言地理范围覆盖的子区域内所有原住民语言的出现情况进行比较，以衡量语言多样性与生物多样性之间的相关性。结果表明，147种语言至少在部分地理范围内与自然世界遗产地重叠。世界遗产地、某种语言或两者均处于濒危状态的同时出现的情况标志着特别值得保护关注的地区。我们考察了所有语言与所有物种、所有语言与濒危物种以及濒危语言与濒危物种的同时出现情况，发现语言多样性与生物多样性之间存在相关性，这可能表明这些截然不同的多样性衡量标准之间存在根本联系。仅考虑濒危物种或濒危语言及物种会降低这种相关性，尽管仍存在相当多的同时出现情况。政府指定保护区的共同治理适用于自然世界遗产地，因为它利用了文化与自然之间的明显联系。非洲那些有原住民语言使用者的自然世界遗产地提供了在高度可见的环境中保护自然和文化的机会，在这些环境中，维持自然系统可能依赖于运转良好的原住民文化系统，反之亦然。
