Archive

The recognition that “other-than-human” entities have legal personality can be seen as an emerging eco-spiritual paradigm around the world.

Since sacred natural sites hi the conservation agenda in the late 90-‘s they have been receiving increasing attention from conservationists. In 2008 at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona the launch of the IUCN UNESCO Best Practice Guidelines “Sacred Natural Sites: Guidelines for Protected Area Managers” marked a sea change in terms of their […]

This is a call for contributions to a forthcoming book entitled: “Indigenous Perspectives on Living with Sacred Heritage (2016)”. This book will look to the notion of a sacred site as defined by its indigenous custodians. As such, sacred sites can be natural or human-made, can be situated in any geographic location, can be closed […]

This four-day film festival (oct 5-8) with dialogues from guest speakers takes place at Movie W Film Theatre in Wageningen Netherlands. The festival evolves around the mining boom currently threatening the environment, people and indigenous communities around the world. It highlights the impacts on indigenous peoples’ sacred places and their ways of living, seeing and […]

The Sacred Natural Sites Initiative and Oxlajuj Ajpop, the National Council of Maya Spiritual Leaders in Guatemala have been working together for over four years now.  What started as a collaboration to get broader and international support for the Law Initiative of Sacred Sites in Guatemala has grown into a country programme that is actively […]

Asian Sacred Natural Sites: An ancient Asian philosophy and practice with fundamental significance to protected areas. (download this call) Within the context of the Asian Sacred Sites Network Project, IUCN WCPA Japan, the Biodiversity Network Japan and the Sacred Natural Sites Initiative in collaboration with the IUCN WCPA Specialist group on Cultural and Spiritual Values of […]

Caption: Presentation of the Conference Statement by the indigenous participants. Photo: Bas Verschuuren. By Leena Heinämäki, Thora Herrmann and Bas Verschuuren on behalf of the conference co-organizers In September 2013, a group of nearly 80 participants from 12 different countries and 7 different Indigenous Peoples developed the “Conference Statement and Recommendations on: Recognition and Safeguarding of the […]

The Sacred Natural Sites Initiative regularly features “Conservation Experiences” of custodians, protected area managers, and others that stand to protect sacred sites. This post features the experiences of Mr. Arvi Sepp from the ‘Estonian House of Taara and Native Religions’ which protects and revitalises sacred natural sites all over Estonia. Arvi Sepp and his colleagues […]

This special feature of the “Conservation Experiences” is based on an interesting case developed by the Delos Initiative.  The Delos initiative is well know for its work on Sacred Natural Sites in developed countries since 2005. The work presented in this feature is based on the monastic community that hosted the first Delos Workshop in […]

The Asian Parks Congress (APC), held in the city of Sendai, Japan from 13 – 18th November 2013 welcomed over 800 people from 22 Asian countries and from across the world.  The Sacred Natural Sites Initiative and WCPA Japan hosted a dedicated working group session and a side event that discussed the rich and diverse dimensions of sacred […]