I live in Seattle, Washington and love it. This place is a bastion of liberals and humanistic ideals. The Spotted Owl would love it here. There would be nary a quibble about extending its protection from teeth gnashing farmers for about another century, population growth notwithstanding. It's here that Bill Gates founded first Microsoft and then the greatest philanthropic organization of our time: the Gates Foundation. Seattleites expend a lot of thought and energy on causes. As an African, one of the causes that I hear strains of all the time, is about preserving endangered cultures. To be fair, there is no din about this per se. It usually manifests through mostly sincere interest in your cultural roots and wished it does not disappear – which aligns with my interests in general. But for the most part, I am more worried about the continued economic survival of Igbos and Nigerians that the abstract fact that all the niceties of our culture is preserved.
The whinging about preserving the world's endangered cultures is just that - whinging. Supposedly, these people and cultures will disappear from the world and it will be a great tragedy™. Some of the most vocal proponents of this are well meaning and sincere, as indicated above. Yet most of the agents of culture destruction are the power elite of these same people in question, in full throated shortsighted callousness; whether it be through the WTO or simply on the back of a Coca Cola marketing rights deal.
Yet with all that, consider that endangered cultures and the efforts around to protect them are very short of fundamental. What people need in endangered cultures is empowerment: the means of production and some serious power and influence over the difficult things in and around their world. Consider that once these things are in place, there is no need for a dogmatic preservation of external trappings of ancient culture. Fundamental empowerment tends to reinforce the best and valuable parts of culture and frees up people to adapt the least valuable and evolve them to fit the circumstances of a changing world. And sometimes, if that includes language, so be it.
Consider that there is no definitive culture of the West. Caucasians, who are undeniably in control of most of the power levers of the world, do not by any stretch, have any allegiance to some deep culture. On the contrary, western culture is constantly changing and adapting to fast technological flux, while preserving what is necessary (and the definition of what that is, changes) for identity or simply tourism. This is so persistently the case that the west is inextricably linked, in these days, with the adoption of bleeding edge technology. No one realistically agitates about preserving white or Caucasian culture. And even those who do, betray the bottom-line of what amounts to real Caucasian culture. On observation, real Caucasian culture is about the amassing of power, control and influence; the agents of flexible self determination. If you listen hard to the most vocal proponents of white culture or power, that is their bottom-line.
Other cultures will do well to emulate them (since they are successful), even if it means the sacrifice of certain elements of their existing culture. Rigid concerns about preserving culture are worthless without being placed in the context of establishing a thriving environment in the present world for the people of that culture.