Terralingua

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Terralingua is a nonprofit organization founded in 1996 by Luisa Maffi and Dave Harmon to protect biocultural diversity—the connections between biological variety, cultures, and languages. It operates in the United States as a 501(c)(3) and as a registered nonprofit in Canada, based on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. Its mission is to protect, maintain, and restore biocultural diversity worldwide, promoting Indigenous rights and supporting communities in sustaining their languages, cultures, and environments.

Terralingua helped create the field of biocultural diversity and received the Ford Foundation’s first grant dedicated to this area in 2001. The grant supported five program areas: mapping and measuring biocultural diversity, maintaining it, building networks, and shaping policy.

From its first conference in 1996, "Endangered Languages, Endangered Knowledge, Endangered Environments," Terralingua has collaborated with major global organizations such as WWF, UNEP, UNESCO, IUCN, and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. It published educational materials with UNESCO in 2003 and, in 2004, produced the first global index of biocultural diversity, using indicators like languages, religions, ethnic groups, and plant and animal species to show how cultural and biological diversity are linked.

In 2008, Terralingua helped promote a policy resolution urging IUCN to integrate cultural diversity with biodiversity, a move the IUCN adopted. The organization continues to explore the links among biology, culture, and language, and to support efforts that preserve languages and the environments people rely on.

Key publications include two foundational books (2001 and 2002) and Biocultural Diversity Conservation: A Global Sourcebook (2010), along with an online Community of Practice. Terralingua runs education campaigns and develops school materials to teach about biocultural diversity and its importance. It has received funding from foundations such as the Christensen Fund and IDRC, plus support from other organizations, and a 2007 bequest from Dr. Aldon Roat.

Terralingua’s work has drawn attention in the media, including coverage in the New York Times, National Geographic, Wired, and National Geographic, and has been praised for bringing biocultural diversity into broader scientific and public discourse.