This paper revisits some problems first identified by the author in 2012 during the 13th International Congress of Ethnobiology. The continued rise of the biocultural conservation has been driven by both policy and scientific research over the last few decades. Biocultural conservation is increasingly being promoted by mainstream conservation organizations. As the use of the concept grows, the potential for its misuse and abuse does also. This paper explores the promotion of biocultural conservation as it is being applied by large international conservation non-governmental organizations (sometimes called BINGOs-Big International NGO’s. This paper is in part a critical exploration of the success of the concept and how growing acceptance and use can lead to unintended consequences. The issue of scale becomes paramount in these considerations: temporally, structurally and spatially. I argue that the long timeframe needed for a careful observation and analysis of biocultural diversity (ideally over multiple generations) is incommensurate with rapid appraisal and the need to demonstrate quick results. Moreover, it leads to hyper-reduction and essentialization of the concept into a series of easily answered and observed questions that can provide simple metrics. This is in large part driven by the pressing need to demonstrate novel approaches and solutions to donors. The concern is that successful implementation of biocultural conservation demands grassroots efforts based on strong communication, patience and clear benefits to the communities involved in the project. The choice then is whether conservation organizations that decide to employ the concept of biocultural conservation choose to engage human communities at a meaningful level. They could also do much to draw attention to what has been noted as the “neglected extiniction crisis” (the loss of languages worldwide) and make the case that conservation can not succeed without substantial efforts aimed at protecting both biological and socio-linguisitic diversity.