Ch. 2— Importance of Biological Diversity • 47 



When Congress adopted the bald eagle as a 

 national symbol, it was responding to an an- 

 cient human need to identify with other spe- 

 cies. All over the world and throughout history, 

 people have adopted animals and plants as em- 

 blems, icons, symbols, and totems and invested 

 them with ideals and values, adopted them as 

 representations of particular characteristics of 

 their culture and society, sought the power and 

 authority they stand for, or venerated them as 

 embodiments of fruitfulness and life itself. 



The endangered bowhead whale plays a piv- 

 otal cultural role in several Yupik and Inupiat 

 Eskimo villages in northern Alaska. Bowhead 

 whale hunting is the first and most important 

 activity in the subsistence cycle. It is a major 

 social unifier, providing community identity 

 and continuity with the past. The division, dis- 

 tribution, and sharing of bowhead whale meat 

 and skin involve the entire community, strength- 

 ening kinship and communal bonds. Important 

 ceremonies, celebrations, and feasts accom- 

 pany the harvest of a bowhead whale and the 

 distribution and sharing of its meat (4,5). 



Port Orford Cedar [Chamaecyparis lawsoni- 

 ance], prized for its cultural and economic 

 values, has become the focus of a recent con- 

 troversy. It grows only in a small area of south- 

 ern Oregon and northern California, where it 

 produces some of the area's highest priced tim- 

 ber. Top quality may cost as much as $3,000 

 per 1,000 board-feet. This price reflects demand 

 from Japan, where it is used in homes and tem- 

 ples as a substitute for the no longer available 

 Japanese Hinoki cypress. It also has great cul- 

 tural importance for Native Americans of the 

 Hupa, Yurok, and Karok tribes in northwestern 

 California, who regard it as sacred and use the 

 wood in homes and religious ceremonies. Man- 

 agement of remaining stands of the cedar has 

 become controversial, because mature trees are 

 in short supply and threatened by a tree-killing 

 root-rot disease, spread partly by logging oper- 

 ations (22). 



Native Americans seek to reserve all the Port 

 Orford Cedar growing on formal tribal land- 

 now administered by the U.S. Forest Service — 

 for ceremonial purposes. Other citizens' groups 



seek a management plan that would control log- 

 ging operations and restrict loggers' access to 

 some areas to reduce the spread of the fungus. 

 Scientists at the Forest Service and Oregon 

 State University are exploring the genetic diver- 

 sity of the species in an effort to develop strains 

 resistant to the fungus (22). 



In South and Southeast Asia, trees, Asian 

 elephants, monkeys, cobras, and birds figure 

 prominently in tribal religions and have been 

 taken into the pantheons of Hinduism and Bud- 

 dhism. Certain tree species, such as Ficus 

 religiosa, are sacrosanct and may not be cut 

 down (2,20); political authorities often invoke 

 the sanction of animals to win popular support 

 (61). Interspecific loyalties persist; the hornbill, 

 central figure of the Gawai Kenya-lang or Horn- 

 bill Festival of the Iban people in Sarawak, 

 Malaysia, is also the official emblem of the state 

 (50). 



In urban North America, species also express 

 community identity. Inwood, Manitoba, pro- 

 claims itself the garter snake capital of the 

 world (after the mass matings of red-sided gar- 

 ter snakes that occur nearby) (67), and Pacific 

 Grove, California, dubs itself Butterfly Town, 

 USA (after the spectacular colonies of Monarch 

 butterflies that overwinter there) (98). These 

 actions are partly commercial acumen — the 

 phenomena are tourist attractions— but they 

 also reflect civic pride and perhaps something 

 deeper as well. 



Genetic Diversity 



Many crop varieties and livestock breeds per- 

 sist because they are culturally valuable to 

 different societies. This group includes plants 

 and animals with religious and ceremonial sig- 

 nificance — such as the festival rices of Nepal 

 and Mithan cattle in northern Burma and north- 

 eastern India (40)— as well as varieties valued 

 for their contribution to the traditional diet. 

 Farmers in the Peruvian Andes commonly 

 plant their potato fields with many varieties 

 (often 30 or more), producing a mixture of 

 colors, shapes, textures, and flavors to enhance 

 the diet (14). In northwestern Spain, a mosaic 



