Many
distinctive human cultures, like the ecosystems on which they depend, are also
facing serious threats.
Anthropologists use the loss of traditional languages as an indication of the
degradation and weakening of native, or indigenous, cultures.
They estimate that somewhere between 50 and 90% of human languages are likely
to disappear within the next 100 years as once isolated cultures get assimilated
into dominant national cultures.
Already, over 149 of 187 (80%) Native American languages have disappeared or are
on the verge of extinction.
The disappearance of these unique languages and cultures represents a profound
human loss.
But as the world's variety of languages and cultural practices diminishes, we
are also losing the detailed ethnobiological knowledge that these cultures have
accumulated over centuries.
This increasingly threatened knowledge includes the many beneficial uses of native
floras and faunas that have already contributed significantly to modern medicine.
This knowledge will be nearly impossible to reconstruct given the little time
remaining before these ecosystems are lost to development and degradation by various
human activities.
Examples of Cultural Diversity are pictured below.
Many
distinctive human cultures, like the ecosystems on which they depend, are also
facing serious threats. 
