Environmental Anthropology

Ethno-forestry, Culture and the More-than-Human World

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Understanding forests means understanding the people, cultures and more-than-human relationships that sustain them.

 

My own work has focused particularly on ethno-forestry—the study of the relationships between people and forests as understood and lived by indigenous peoples. Through more than four decades of ethnographic research, I have explored how indigenous and local communities relate to forests through their cosmologies, customary institutions, spiritual beliefs and everyday practices. These relationships are sustained through reciprocal obligations and customary practices of protection that seek to maintain harmony between people and the more-than-human world.

Field research in Nepal and southwest China demonstrated that forests are understood not simply as collections of trees or ecological resources, but as living cultural landscapes inhabited by humans, animals, plants, ancestors, spirit owners and other-than-human persons. Within these worlds, protection arises from reciprocal relationships and customary obligations rather than from external systems of management or regulation.

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"Discussing with Tibetan nomads how people, forests, spirit beings and other living beings are bound together through reciprocal relationships, customary obligations and mutual care."

What is Ethno-forestry?

Ethno-forestry is an approach to understanding forests through the lives, knowledge systems and worldviews of the people who inhabit them. Rather than beginning with forests as ecological or economic resources, it begins with the relationships that indigenous peoples maintain with forests as living communities of humans and other-than-human persons.

My own approach to ethno-forestry has been shaped by more than four decades of ethnographic fieldwork in Nepal and southwest China. It explores how cosmology, customary institutions, spiritual beliefs and everyday practice sustain reciprocal relationships between people and forests, and how these relationships are expressed through customary practices of protection.

Ethno-forestry therefore seeks not simply to understand forests, but to understand the cultural, spiritual and moral relationships through which forests continue to flourish as living communities.

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Learning environmental values from the Minyak people during ethnographic fieldwork in eastern Tibet.

My Research

My research has explored:

• Indigenous systems of forest governance

• Sacred forests and sacred natural sites

• Traditional ecological knowledge

• Cultural landscape management

• Spirit owners and spiritual governance

• Community forestry

• Ethnoecology

• Rights of Nature

• Human–forest relationships

• Topocosmic equilibrium

These themes have emerged through long-term fieldwork among Himalayan communities and minority peoples of southwest China, together with more recent conservation work in Wales.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exploring children's relationships with trees among the Muoso people of southwest China. Everyday conversations with children often revealed as much about cultural values as formal interviews with adults.

 

From Ethno-forestry to Spiritual Governance

 

During my field research, I came to realise that forests and landscapes are often protected not simply through customary institutions, but through relationships with gzhi bdag (territorial spirit owners) and other-than-human persons. These relationships create reciprocal obligations that shape how people live within and care for their environments.

The Ton Ton mound near Shangri-la was especially significant. It was inhabited by a female gzhi bdag, making it unusual within the local spiritual landscape. Unlike many sacred sites where ritual responsibilities or access were restricted, women were able to visit, honour and appease the resident spirit. This challenged simple assumptions about gender, sacred authority and indigenous religion, revealing the richness and diversity of local traditions.

Experiences such as these led me beyond ethno-forestry towards the broader concept of spiritual governance. I came to understand that forests are often protected through relationships with spirit owners, customary obligations and moral responsibilities embedded within indigenous cosmologies. These insights have shaped my subsequent work on sacred natural sites, Rights of Nature and community-based conservation.

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Ton Ton Mound near Shangri-la, inhabited by a female gzhi bdag. The site challenged conventional assumptions about gender, sacred authority and indigenous environmental governance.

Contemporary Relevance

Environmental anthropology has become increasingly important as societies confront biodiversity loss, climate change and ecological degradation.

Indigenous knowledge systems, cultural values and locally rooted forms of environmental stewardship offer important insights into building more sustainable relationships between people and nature.

Understanding these relationships is not simply an academic exercise; it has practical implications for conservation, restoration and environmental governance throughout the world.

Current Interests

My present work seeks to apply insights gained through environmental anthropology to contemporary conservation initiatives in Wales.

Current interests include:

• Rights of Nature

• Nature Guardians

• Biodiversity recovery

• Community stewardship

• GIS and participatory mapping

• Spiritual governance

• Landscape restoration

Explore Further

This page connects directly with:

• Spiritual Governance

• Rights of Nature

• Nature Recovery

• Publications

• Current Projects

Together these pages explore how environmental anthropology can contribute to both understanding and caring for the more-than-human world.