Multilingualism for pluralising knowledge and decision making about people and nature relationships

Abstract

The need for a pluralistic approach to biodiversity conservation science and policy is increasingly being recognized. We argue that plural perspectives require multilingualism in the sources and processes. Unless the linguistic bias and the related issues in terms of legitimacy and validity, resistance to inclusion, and knowledge coproduction are meaningfully addressed, biodiversity science and its positive effects for conservation policy and practices will necessarily be limited. We propose a series of options to address the linguistic biases in biodiversity conservation science and policy, including extending and tightening collaboration with environmental humanities scholars from diverse traditions as well as researchers from diverse linguistic contexts. We conclude by showing how multilingualism is especially relevant for cross-scale and global biodiversity governance. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.