ABSTRACT
The development of scientific knowledge concerning nature has gone through several historical phases, as has the relationship of mankind to nature. Michel Foucault argues that the formation of scientific knowledge about biology was linked to the development of agriculture, that is, the cultivation of life forms. The aim of the National Forum on BioDiversity was to bring together 60 experts from the fields of biology, the economy, agriculture and philosophy, as well as representatives of relevant agencies, in order to assemble knowledge on the state of global biological diversity (ibid). Biodiversity knowledge is hence a product of the human ability to observe and analyse facts based upon the cognitive faculty to organise the natural world. Indeed research on biodiversity has had an openly political dimension since at least 1992, the date when the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was open for signature within the framework of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
