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Field Environmental Philosophy and
Biocultural Conservation: The Omora
Ethnobotanical Park Educational Program
Ricardo Rozzi, Ximena Arango, Francisca Massardo,
Christopher Anderson, Kurt Heidinger, and Kelli Moses*
Habitats (where we live), habits (how we live), and inhabitants (who we are) constitute an
ecosystem unit. The biosphere is composed of a reticulate mosaic of these habitat-habit-
inhabitant units, where humans (with their indigenous languages, ecological knowledge,
and practices) have coevolved. Today, these diverse ecosystem units are being violently
destroyed by the imposition of a single global colonial cultural model. In Cape Horn at
the southern end of the Americas, educators, authorities, and decision makers do not know
about the native habitats, language, and flora, and do not distinguish between Cape Horn's
flora and the flora that grows in other parts of the country or the world. In contrast, indig-
enous people and old residents have a detailed knowledge, but they do not participate in
education, and decision making. It is not Homo sapiens in general, but bioculturally biased
educators, authorities, and decision makers who need to be transformed into (educated and
responsible) members and citizen of biocultural communities. The Omora Ethnobotanical
Park educational program was launched to contribute to a biocultural citizenship involving
three critical steps: (1) the disclosing ofbiocultural diversity with a "fine filter" approach that
permits understanding of the cultural and ecological diversity hidden by general universal
labels; (2) direct "face-to-face" encounters with human and nonhuman co-inhabitants;
and (3) actions for protection of habitats and implementation of interpretative spaces that
facilitate direct encounters and conservation of biocultural diversity. These steps have been
implemented at local and regional scales through the creation of the Omora Ethnobotanical
Park and the UNESCO Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve.
HABITATS - HABITS - INHABITANTS
In its most archaic form, the Greek word ethos means den, the dwelling of an
animal.1 Through an extension of the word's use, its meaning came to include the
dwellings of humans. Later, this noun also became the verb "to dwell." This dual
noun-verb meaning of the Greek ethos is mirrored by the Latin words habitat and
* Ricardo Rozzi, Department of Philosophy, University of North Texas, PO. Box 310920, Denton,
TX 76203-0920, and Omora Ethnobotanical Park (University of Magallanes [UMAG] and Institute of
Ecology and Biodiversity [IEB]), Puerto Williams Chile; Ximena Arango, Francisca Massardo, and
Christopher B. Anderson Omora Ethnobotanical Park (UMAG and IEB), Puerto Williams, Chile; Kurt
Heidinger, 1 Stage Road,Westhampton, MA 01027-9655; and Kelli Moses, Department of Biology,
UNT Chile Program, University ofNorth Texas, P.O. Box 310920, Denton, TX 76203-0920. The authors
thank Gene Hargrove for valuable comments during the preparation of this manuscript, Patrick Sewell
and Jen Meyers for work on an ealier version of this manuscript, and acknowledge support from the
National Science Foundation (Project No. 06524220), the Hispanic Global Initiative, University of
North Texas, and two IEB grants: ICM, PO2-051-FICM and CONICYT PFB23-2008.
1 H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. (New York: Oxford Press, 1996). See
also J. Gonzalez, El Ethos, Destino del Hombre. (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Econdmica, 1996),
pp. 9-12.
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