The cultural and spiritual significance of nature has been defined as the spiritual, cultural, inspirational, aesthetic, historic and social meanings, values, feelings, ideas and associations that natural features and nature in general have for past, present and future generations of people – both individuals and groups. These guidelines respond to a growing need to make conservation more inclusive, effective and socially just by accommodating multiple worldviews; by treating natural and cultural heritage as interlinked; and by suggesting ways for engaging and empowering all relevant groups and stakeholders in protected area design, governance and management. The guidelines also assist with creating common ground, resolving conflicts and implementing rights-based approaches that recognise human rights and legal pluralism.
There are several documented cases of indigenous peoples' conflicts with mining companies, often for the reason that the land planned for mining is sacred or culturally significant to them. This paper presents a comparative analysis of two specific anti-mining social movements in India and the Philippines that combined an emphasis on environmental protection with an emphasis on indigenous cultural rights. We show how the emphasis on indigeneity in these social movements played itself out in relation to globalized frames, as well as the other frames within which the movements were also situated.
This paper analyses the representations of the religiosity of the indigenous Dongaria Kondh community in India by international and domestic activists. The Dongaria Kondhs live on and worship the Niyamgiri Mountain on top of which a bauxite mining project was planned. The community's religiosity became the primary focus of what became known as the Niyamgiri Movement. Activists at local and international scales employed different representations of the Dongaria Kondhs' religious relation with their land, which facilitated different groups' identification with the Dongarias' religiosity, and consequently enhanced the support for the Niyamgiri Movement, which was ultimately successful. The paper uses Spivak's theorisation of subalternity and Baudrillard's theory of enchanted simulacra to conduct its analysis. It finds that the representational strategies of the Niyamgiri Movement created space for the Dongarias to voice themselves-in opposition to oppressive power structures and beyond the strategic narratives delineated by the activists who represented them.
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