Biodiversity and products for everyday use
Biodiversity and its derived products are recurrent themes in human artistic expression which is carried out for different reasons (magic-religious practices, utilitarian, propagandistic, socio-political, educational or simply artistic) and it is usually integrated into the final result.
Many of the implements for practical use like tools, baskets, containers furniture and other objects for everyday use are made from materials which come from plants and animals belonging to the biodiverse groups with which people lived. Even today wood, leaves, bark, fibres, leather, skin and bones are used for craftwork.
A quick review of some of these objects shows how practical and efficient designs were soon used for their different functions, and how they were exchanged through contact between cultures and how they persisted almost unchanged in human groups until new industrial technology supplanted them, and especially the new revolution in virtual technology. Baby carriers, sewing needles, baskets, sickles and many other objects and tools are good examples of our ancestors’ ability for design.
Some populations –generally indigenous and localised- have kept these objects up to the present day, partly because they exactly meet the function they were designed for and partly because they live in conditions of poverty which means they cannot substitute them for alternative modern objects.