Of Rights and Responsibilities

Chapter 4 analyses the idea of biocultural rights, starting off by quoting the words of Sanjay Kabir Bavikatte. The chapter explores some cases (in Kenya, India, and New Zealand) which may be interpreted from a biocultural rights perspectives, and looks at biocultural rights’ justifications and holders, and at the set of rights necessary to maintain environmental stewardship roles. Departing from the claim that the foundations of biocultural rights are two concurring ones, exploring biocultural rights’ ancestors—Darrel Posey’s Traditional Resource Rights—and dismissing the noble savage myth, biocultural rights are analysed to fully understand what they are and what they are not. The foundations of biocultural rights are then explored in detail, focusing on the problems arising from the fact that biocultural rights, besides conferring rights to their holders, also seem to confer a set of environmental duties.