122 Ingrid Hall
“Integrating” Nature and Culture, Putting Forward an Organic
Nature Regime
Within negotiations, one of the first ways of articulating the concepts of nature
and culture put forward by IPLCs depends upon what certain meeting participants called a “holistic” approach, “cosmovision”, or “integration”. While the
first two terms are used by IPLCs, the third has been used by other actors, in
this case the CBD Secretariat in charge of organizing the WG8j meeting, the
IUCN representative, but also the Colombian and Ethiopian delegations. It also
appears in the documents negotiated during meetings.
21 I have kept to this last
term (“integration”), since this choice helps to underline the extent to which
the nature regime we are discussing relates, true enough, to ontological concepts, but whose expression must also be understood in a given context. From a
conceptual point of view, this nature regime is quite close to the organic nature
regime identified by Escobar (1999, p. 7), characterized by the fact that “nature
and society are not separated ontologically”, a regime, in other words, where
“the natural world is integral to the social world” (Escobar, 1999, p. 8).
WG8j
It was at the WG8j meeting that the integration of nature and culture was put
forward in the most explicit and articulate manner. Certain declarations submitted by IPLCs to the Secretariat beforehand made reference to the matter. Yet
above all, it was during presentations – the opening ceremony, presentations in
plenary sessions before negotiations, and side events – that IPLCs defended this
nature regime, although these presentations have no legal weight.
At the opening of the meeting, a range of viewpoints was presented. First of
all, the opening ceremony itself consisted of a welcome from indigenous peoples whose ancestral territory has been where Montreal stands now, where the
meeting was taking place, as has become the custom in Canada over recent years.
Charlie Patton, from the Mohawk Nation (Quebec, Canada), welcomed all participants onto the land of his nation. The other official presentations marking the
opening of the meeting, especially a short audiovisual document, emphasised
the importance of IPLCs in biodiversity conservation the world over, and the
uniqueness of the relationship that these peoples have with nature.
At the following session, on the contribution of IPLC knowledge to
the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework,
22 various speakers intervened, including Josefa Isabela Tauli, an indigenous representative from the
Philippines (for the Global Youth Biodiversity Network). In her intervention,
she highlighted the importance of the concept of ili for the Kankanaey. This
term can be translated as “place of origin”, and it has been made use of because
it shows in an exemplary way that nature and culture are intimately linked
for this indigenous people of the Philippines (see Adonis & Couch, 2018 who
elaborate on this concept).
“Integrating” Nature and Culture, Putting Forward an Organic
Nature Regime
Within negotiations, one of the first ways of articulating the concepts of nature
and culture put forward by IPLCs depends upon what certain meeting participants called a “holistic” approach, “cosmovision”, or “integration”. While the
first two terms are used by IPLCs, the third has been used by other actors, in
this case the CBD Secretariat in charge of organizing the WG8j meeting, the
IUCN representative, but also the Colombian and Ethiopian delegations. It also
appears in the documents negotiated during meetings.
21 I have kept to this last
term (“integration”), since this choice helps to underline the extent to which
the nature regime we are discussing relates, true enough, to ontological concepts, but whose expression must also be understood in a given context. From a
conceptual point of view, this nature regime is quite close to the organic nature
regime identified by Escobar (1999, p. 7), characterized by the fact that “nature
and society are not separated ontologically”, a regime, in other words, where
“the natural world is integral to the social world” (Escobar, 1999, p. 8).
WG8j
It was at the WG8j meeting that the integration of nature and culture was put
forward in the most explicit and articulate manner. Certain declarations submitted by IPLCs to the Secretariat beforehand made reference to the matter. Yet
above all, it was during presentations – the opening ceremony, presentations in
plenary sessions before negotiations, and side events – that IPLCs defended this
nature regime, although these presentations have no legal weight.
At the opening of the meeting, a range of viewpoints was presented. First of
all, the opening ceremony itself consisted of a welcome from indigenous peoples whose ancestral territory has been where Montreal stands now, where the
meeting was taking place, as has become the custom in Canada over recent years.
Charlie Patton, from the Mohawk Nation (Quebec, Canada), welcomed all participants onto the land of his nation. The other official presentations marking the
opening of the meeting, especially a short audiovisual document, emphasised
the importance of IPLCs in biodiversity conservation the world over, and the
uniqueness of the relationship that these peoples have with nature.
At the following session, on the contribution of IPLC knowledge to
the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework,
22 various speakers intervened, including Josefa Isabela Tauli, an indigenous representative from the
Philippines (for the Global Youth Biodiversity Network). In her intervention,
she highlighted the importance of the concept of ili for the Kankanaey. This
term can be translated as “place of origin”, and it has been made use of because
it shows in an exemplary way that nature and culture are intimately linked
for this indigenous people of the Philippines (see Adonis & Couch, 2018 who
elaborate on this concept).