Biodiversity protection must include language preservation

Nature作者:Mitali Das2026年9月29日正文已收录本站
  • CORRESPONDENCE

By

  • Mengying Wang1 &
  • Benjamin Kuersteiner2
  1. Mitali Das
    1. International Monetary Fund, Washington DC, USA.

  2. Mengying Wang
    1. International Monetary Fund, Washington DC, USA.

  3. Benjamin Kuersteiner
    1. St. Albans School, Washington DC, USA.

The loss of an Indigenous language can also mean the loss of the ecological and medicinal knowledge embedded in it (see R. Cámara-Leret et al. Nature 655, 1212–1216; 2026). Although declines in language use can be reversed, efforts to do so remain overlooked in national legislation and policies. Governments should provide sustained support for community-led immersion, family- and land-based learning and digital tools that help speakers to teach and pass on their languages to the next generation.

Nature 658, 286 (2026)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-03056-5

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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