Book: Cultural and Spiritual Significance of Nature

The book is being developed by CSVPA and will consist of approximately 15 illustrated peer-reviewed chapters of approximately 5000 words. It will be published by Routledge, Taylor and Francis group in 2017 or early 2018.

How and when to contribute

If you are interested in making a submission to the book please download the call for proposals via the button on the right. Please send us an abstract and/or an outline of your proposed chapter before November 15^th 2016.

Late submissions, beyond November 15^th, can likely still be considered although we aim to get a decent number of chapters confirmed as soon as possible. The expected date for selecting the final chapters will be December 15 and the date for submission of the full chapters is the 30^th of April 2017.

About the book

Cultural and spiritual bonds with nature are among the strongest drives and motivators for nature conservation yet they are not often taken into account in the governance and management of protected areas.

To be sustainable, effective, and equitable, approaches to the management and governance of protected and conserved areas need to be grounded not only in solid scientific research and practice, but also in deeply held cultural, spiritual and aesthetic values and ideas capable of inspiring conservation of biological and cultural diversity.

Otherwise, they risk failing to win the broad support of key stakeholders, ranging from Indigenous Peoples and local communities to followers of mainstream religions, and members of the general public.

With the expanding range of different kinds of protected areas around the world, it is critical to expand the scope of their governance and management and to take into account the rights and aspirations of stakeholders from a variety of cultural, religious and spiritual backgrounds. Therefore the book also aims at a deeper exploration of the values and philosophies that inform the practices and policies that define protected and conserved areas, as we know them today and as part of a rapidly changing future. Therefore the book aims to cover all of the IUCN governance types and management categories and is open to reflections on all possible ways of categorising or seeing ‘nature’ and ‘conservation’ in relation to culture and spirituality.

Scope of the book

The chapters will cover explorations of the conceptual, philosophical and theoretical underpinnings as well as practical case studies on the role of cultural and spiritual significance of nature in the governance and management of protected and conserved areas. The book aims to cover all of the IUCN governance types and management categories and is open to reflections on all possible ways of categorising or seeing ‘nature’ and ‘conservation’ in relation to culture and spirituality.

Learn more about the CSVPA Programme on the Cultural and Spiritual Significance of Nature

The programmatic context of the book:

The book will be part of a broader programme on the cultural and spiritual significance of nature currently being developed by the IUCN Specialist Group on Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas, see figure 1 . It will be integrated and promoted along with the programmes’ online case studies, training modules and lessons learned from the IUCN Best Practice Guidelines.

Figure1: The book and other elements of CSVPA’s Cultural and Spiritual Significance of Nature Project.