BOOKMARKS
Biodiversity and Culture Highlighted in EU Cultural Counsellors Visit to ACB
W
hat is the connection between culture and biodiversity? Biodiversity and cultural diversity are intimately and inextricably linked, that they should be thought of as a unified whole. In fact, significant overlaps in distribution and factors affecting the geographic patterns of biodiversity and culture have been observed. This was the gist of the presentation by Rusyan Jill Coburn, research and policy specialist of the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), for the cultural counselors of European Union (EU)
Member States’ embassies in the Philippines. Nine cultural counselors from six EU countries visited the ACB headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna in the Philippines on 30 March 2009 to know more about the Centre and its advocacy, as well as the interface between culture and biodiversity. Led by Thelma Gecolea, Public Affairs Officer of the Delegation of the European Commission to the Philippines, the group was composed of Monika Junker-Guldin, Austria; Anne
Bloemen, Belgium; Ambassador Jaroslav Ludva, Monika Kozdova, and Mary Katherine Igban, Czech Republic and representing the EU Presidency; Emilie Flambeaux, France; Inkeri Tankera, Finland; and Anamaria Vlad and Vlad Stefan Cristian, Romania. During the ACB meeting with the EU cultural counsellors, Ms. Coburn explained that the management of nature is the expression of our many human cultures. A detailed understanding of biodiversity is necessary to comprehend how the environment reshapes
Above: Rusyan Jill Coburn (center), ACB Research and Policy Specialist, discusses the interface between culture and biodiversity. Above, left: Ambassador Jaroslav Ludva of the Czech Republic views ACB’s exhibits on Southeast Asia’s rich but threatened biodiversity. Left: European Union cultural counselors with ACB officers and staff.
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JANUARY-APRIL 2009 www.aseanbiodiversity.org