Colonialism and neo-colonialism have contributed heavily to environmental degradation. Reconstructing damaged environments requires cultural reconstruction and therefore intercultural cooperation. Any fully integrated environmental management system must take cultural impacts into account. Past failure to account for differences in culture has led to failed projects, cultural genocide, violent competition for scarce resources and instability between various cultural groups. Cultural landscapes are also environmental treasures that add to the wealth and resources of a country.
Cultural diversity is an environmental stimulus that educates and entertains people.
Furthermore, maintaining diverse cultural landscapes is a precondition for the biological diversity required for sustainable systems and should therefore be a principle of environmental decision-making. Bases of cultural conflict over the environment While many people live in a socially constructed world of states that divides up the earth's air space, land, water, mineral resources, and oceans, some live in a world regulated by a nation, tribe, ethnic group or another cultural identity. The first group often rejects cultural claims as undemocratic, irrelevant, and part of an older order that must not be taken too seriously. The latter group often rejects authoritarian, top-down management that separates the bureaucrat from the environmental user and imposes technocentric solutions on cultural landscapes and environments. Some cultural groups even see the state as an expansionist power in conflict with legitimate rights to resources.