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Terralinguaconceptualizes ecology and conservation in broad ways, incorporating human cultures and languages into its vision of biological and environmental diversity. Rather than viewing the human relationship to nature as one that presents human activity in monochromatic hues or, worse still, depicts Homo sapiens wholly as external agents, Terralingua follows the course set by deep ecologists.
In its effort to defend biocultural diversity, the group focuses on language as a key issue and symbol. Representing the uniqueness of indigenous cultures, language plays an essential role in shaping traditional views of the natural world and in encoding information about folkways cultural processes. The extinction of language, the members of Terralingua believe, marks the destruction of individual cultures and the expansion of a ideological system that objectifies nature.
Terralingua supports a range of research activities designed to monitor the state of both ecological and cultural diversity and work with local groups to promote preservation. The NGO’s Index on Biocultural Diversity and GIS Database on Biocultural Diversity rely on the most recent trends in the social sciences and remote sensing to model broad relationships between linguistic patterns and the environment, while a pilot program in the Colorado Plateau region of the US built partnerships between Native Americans, nonprofit groups, and Northern Arizona University and sought to to identify and respond to threats to the area.
. Historian Shae Davidson's research interests include public policy and the relationship between culture and civil society. His publications range from articles on industrial history to absurdist poetry.
In its effort to defend biocultural diversity, the group focuses on language as a key issue and symbol. Representing the uniqueness of indigenous cultures, language plays an essential role in shaping traditional views of the natural world and in encoding information about folkways cultural processes. The extinction of language, the members of Terralingua believe, marks the destruction of individual cultures and the expansion of a ideological system that objectifies nature.