Biodiversity Is an Artifact: How People Make Ecosystems

By: Charles Barstow

The term “biodiversity,” which first appeared in the 1980s, is very much in vogue in popular, scientific and political discourse on conservation and sustainability. For environmentalists, it has largely replaced “nature” as an organizing framework and rallying cry. But, like “nature,” “biodiversity” is portrayed as, and misunderstood to be, healthiest, safest and most “natural” in the absence of people. A wealth of research from the natural and social sciences clearly demonstrates that, in fact, biological diversity cannot be understood independently of human societies and cultural diversity. For example, we now know that the regions of the world with the highest diversity of plants are also home to the richest diversity of human languages. In this talk, Charles Barstow will draw on political, historical and cultural ecology to show that biodiversity is a human invention, both conceptually and materially, and will discuss what this means for confronting ecological change and the climate crisis.