Sacred Species and Sites

Gloria Pungetti is Research Director of the Cambridge Centre for Landscape and People (CCLP). Aiming to integrate the spiritual and cultural values of land and communities into landscape planning, nature conservation and sustainable development, she has widely published on these topics and chairs the IUCN-CCLP 3S Initiative on Sacred Species and Sites. Gonzalo Oviedo is the Senior Adviser for Social Policy at IUCN. In this position he facilitates IUCN's global work on topics such as livelihood security, poverty reduction, indigenous peoples and rural communities, and assists the IUCN programmes worldwide on matters of social equity and human wellbeing in their conservation work. Della Hooke is an Honorary Fellow in the Institute for Advanced Research in Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Birmingham. She is an historical geographer and has published extensively upon the historical development of the British landscape. Her research interests include the early medieval landscape and combining ecological and cultural evidence from forest, woodland and parks.

• Part I. Concepts and Knowledge; Part II. Sacred Landscapes; Part III. Sacred Sites and People; Part IV. Sacred Species; Part V. Sacred Animals; Part VI. Sacred Groves and Plants; Part VII. Implementation and Conclusions.

'Collectively, the fascinating cases in this innovative and substantial book demonstrate the importance for biologists, conservationists, and environmentalists to consider culture and religion in their research and its practical applications. This expertly and skilfully crafted publication is most useful as a reference work, a textbook for a wide range of advanced courses, and as an addition to the rapidly growing body of literature on the subject.' Leslie E. Sponsel, The Quarterly Review of Biology