These lines from T.S. Eliot have always resonated with me. As with all art, what we read into them is inevitably informed by our own experience and cultural influences. For me, they bring forth a powerful sense of place for the area in which I grew up and to where, after decades elsewhere, I have finally returned. The land is of outstanding natural beauty and extraordinary biodiversity; it is also a dynamic cultural landscape, maintained over the centuries for hunting, grazing, firewood, fungi and timber. In recent years it has been formally gazetted as a National Park.
The Cultural and Spiritual Significance of Nature in Protected Areas explores the nature of our connections with just these kinds of landscapes. The authors argue that cultural and spiritual bonds with nature can provide strong motivations for conservation. This is timely. Despite some progress in both policy and practice towards more people-centred, rights-based approaches, so-called fortress conservation—excluding people from protected areas on the premise that human activities are incompatible with conservation—is not yet dead. The concepts and stories in this publication also contrast with neoliberal conservation, with its focus on the marketization, privatization and commodification of nature.
Chapter 1 opens with reference to Alexander van Humboldt's ‘deeply seated bond’, the connection between knowledge and the arts, between science and emotion. Such interconnectedness, including the relationships between people and their environment, is at the core of this compilation. The word culture is derived from the Latin term to tend the earth, to cultivate, to nurture. However, definitions of culture, cultural values and cultural significance vary markedly between disciplines. The editors therefore take the time to explore these terms and explain their own choices of terminology. Of particular note is the use of the word natureculture to articulate the concept that nature and culture are mutually constituted, rather than separate or linked realms.
The book is structured in three sections. Part I focuses on philosophical foundations. Part II explores how the concepts are addressed in international conventions and associated practice. Part III comprises case studies of how the cultural and spiritual significance of nature is incorporated into protected area governance and management. The primary intended audience is conservation professionals working in protected area management and policy, with academics as a key secondary target group. Hence there is a strong emphasis on conceptual frameworks and international policy processes. This can make some material feel heavy going, particularly for those more directly engaged in conservation practice.
Readers are taken on a global journey across mountains, steppes, islands and wetlands, from Yellowstone through Batwa customary lands in Uganda and the cultural landscapes of Italy and Spain, Fengshui forests and spiritually governed sacred sites in China, the Pacific islands, to the homestead gardens of Australia. So what's missing? Seascapes and their cultural and spiritual significance seem to be limited to a photo of a whale in the final chapter. Geographically, I found little reference to Latin America which, given its diversity of Indigenous Peoples and more recent migrants with their often contrasting relationships with nature, seems a pity. Reading with an equity lens, I was also somewhat surprised to be left with the feeling that most analysis was largely gender blind.
To be fair, no single publication is likely to be able to cover all the bases. There is definitely something here for everyone interested in these complex, dynamic and diverse issues, including explorations of what makes a place sacred, stories of meaning, even the meaning of meaning. Spiritual governance and Indigenous nature spirituality, as well as the role of mainstream religious institutions, are also discussed.
At the heart of this book is the contributors' desire to make conservation more sustainable, equitable and effective by engaging with deeply held cultural and spiritual values to inspire action to conserve cultural, geological and biological diversity. In many places their passion for this mission shines through.
