Earth Stewardship and the Biocultural Ethic: Latin American Perspectives - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 87

8.1 Naming the Diverse Earth Stewards

Earth is not only a biophysical entity, but it is also a word. A word that infl uences
the way we understand and relate to the biophysical reality of the planet. Very often
scientists forget the gravity of words, and focus their research on the biophysical
reality. Conversely, philosophers often focus on examining the language of cultural
reality, ignoring the biophysical realm. The biocultural ethic unites biological and
physical realities with human cultural attainment. It provides Earth stewardship
with a conceptual framework that integrates the biophysical and symbolic-linguistic
realms of reality (Box 8.1 ), and explicitly integrates the concept of stewards. What
is named exists in language and communication. Therefore, it can be included in
analyses and evaluations. Earth stewardship is composed of two words, but the
concept implies a third term: stewards . Naming these stewards allows us to better
distinguish particular agents that have different types and degrees of impact and
responsibility in causing the global environmental change we face today.

Box 8.1. Language: Human's Biocultural Lenses
Humans participate not only in the biophysical, but in the symbolic, cultural,
and linguistic structures and processes of biocultural landscapes. Human per-
ceptions and understanding of biological diversity are embedded in language,
culture, and technology. The compound term biocultural makes explicit the role
that the “cultural lenses” of any human “observer” (including scientists with
their research methods, and conceptual taxonomies) have in shaping the con-
struction and interpretation of biodiversity concepts. In turn, the ways humans
perceive and understand biodiversity and their environment infl uence the ways
humans inhabit ecosystems, and modify the structure, processes, and composi-
tion of living beings, from molecular to global scales. To illustrate this point, it
is helpful to look at an example of two contrasting languages, Amazonian
Waorani and English, regarding the way they refer to forest ecosystems.
The Waorani word ömö defi nes forests as worlds inhabited by countless
sentient beings , who share with humans the same home, dispositions, values,
and culture (Rival 2012 ). This human-forest kinship implicated in the word
ömö stimulates the performance of rituals, and today it encourages Waorani
people to protect their forests and oppose oil extraction in the Yasuní National
Park (Sawyer 2004 ; Finer et al. 2009 ). In contrast, the English word wood-
land , implies that forest ecosystems are a land of wood . The focus on wood
can lead to a further narrowing of mentality for understanding forest ecosys-
tems because: (i) the existence of the many non-woody beings is excluded
from language; (ii) trees may be interpreted as mere resources , for either
fuel or building materials (Rozzi and Poole 2011 ). These contrasting defi ni-
tions of forest ecosystems illustrate how concepts embedded in language
infl uence both ecological practices (the ways in which humans transform
other species and the environment), and ecological knowledge (the ways in
which humans perceive other species and their environment) (cf. Rozzi 2001 ).