Readers of this website may be interested in a webinar presentation for REVIVE eCoexist that Dr Edwin Bernbaum, CSVPA Co-Chair, did recently on “Conserving Sacred Mountains: Badrinath and Mt. Kailas,” followed by a panel discussion with Prof. A.N. Purohit and Dr. P.P. Dhyan, both former directors of the G. B. Pant National Institute; Abhimanyu Pandey, formerly with ICIMOD; and Kai Weise with ICOMOS.
Here’s a link to a video of the webinar on YouTube:
Here’s a brief description of the presentation:
The sense of the sacred inspired by natural features, mountains in particular, has a crucial role to play in programs to preserve cultural and biological diversity. In a presentation illustrated with striking images, Edwin Bernbaum describes two projects that have taken this approach: one, to restore a sacred forest at Badrinath, the major pilgrimage shrine in the Indian Himalaya; the other to nominate Mount Kailas in Tibet/China and the pilgrimage routes leading to it from India and Nepal as an UNESCO trans-boundary World Heritage Site.
A response from a CSVPA-member who watched the webinar shared: “The webinar well captures the participatory efforts to conserve one of the most pristine natural resources in these sacred mountains in the Himalayas. This has been a long term process for all of you and it is worth appreciating”
As the links between spirituality and conservation are a focus area for eCoexist they also welcome other speakers from the CSVPA network who can present to our audiences in India …
They welcome speakers on the following topics:
1. Sacred landscapes
2. Deep Ecology
3. Inter faith efforts for conservation
4. The changing idea of pilgrimage
5. Cyclic world views and their implications for conservation
6. The spirit world
And more…
Suggestions welcome…
