"All of them have a lot of what I call 'lost world' content," said Bauman. "That is, a lot of species that have disappeared over the last century, a lot of languages that have been lost, and traditions and cultures that have disappeared together."
Lost Languages
Many indigenous peoples have an intimate and unique knowledge of local plants and animals. Much of this knowledge has been captured on film, and could provide clues on lost forms of agriculture and uses of medicinal plants.
Perhaps even more importantly, rare films and documentaries could help preserve indigenous songs, poetry and oral traditions.
"You hear so much about biological loss of life," said Wade Davis, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and an expert on struggling cultures. "You hear much less about what I consider to be an even more serious situation: the rapid loss of cultural diversity."
Davis believes the best indicator of this cultural erosion is the dwindling number of languages spoken in the world.
According to the United Nations, there are as many as 7,000 spoken languages worldwide. More than 4,000 are classified as indigenous. Papua New Guinea has the most languages, with 847 different tongues used. At least 2,500 languages may be in danger of immediate extinction.
Researchers have estimated that more than 500 languages are spoken by less than ten people. Of the 175 native languages spoken in the United States, 55 are spoken by fewer than 10 people. Half of the languages that were spoken 50 years ago are not being taught to school children today.
"Language is not just vocabulary and grammar. It's the flash of the human spirit," said Davis. "It's the vehicle through which the soul of a culture comes to the material world, and every language is like an old-growth forest of the mind."
He resents the idea that some cultures will naturally become extinct.
"These aren't delicate societies destined to fade away by some kind of natural law. They're dynamic, living peoples being driven out of existence by external forces," said Davis. "I don't want to live in a world where my language is eradicated or becomes like a cultural nerve gas that swamps other languages."
A Database of Knowledge
With the Visual Memory Project, Bauman hopes to create an invaluable database of cultural and scientific knowledge, from which host nations can reclaim lost languages, technologies and cultural memories. He believes the uses for the material are almost limitless.
"For example, you're going to get visual data that will allow you to do three-dimensional recreations of archeological sites that have been destroyed by war or acid rain or a whole range of things," he said.
For now, the project is in a fundraising pilot phase. The National Geographic Society's partners include the World Bank, the Asian Pacific Broadcasting Union, and INA, the French National Archive.
Once the program is up and running, work could go on for decades.
"There are huge swaths of the Earth that will keep us occupied for a long time to come," said Bauman. "What we hope to do first is go after the low-hanging fruit, big archives with a lot of material that are not catalogued, where we know a lot of this material exists."
Editor's note: Institutions interested in the project may contact Mark Bauman (e-mail: mbauman@ngs.org; telephone: +1 202 775 6589) for further information.
|
SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES
|
