Preserving Sacred Sites in the Arctic: Lessons from elsewhere?

Abstract

Greetings! First of all, thank you for reaching out with regard to the question of how sacred sites can best be dealt with here in the Arctic. The answers surely depend on how best the local and indigenous residents see the matter. But, I believe, there are also examples that we can tap into from elsewhere to better address this research problem. During my six years of doctoral research among the Bakweri indigenous group of the Mount Cameroon National Park in sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, I got to gather new insights as to how the people of Mount Cameroon go about preserving their sacred sites amid an adverse system of collaborative management (co-management) that rarely follows principles of equal power-sharing.

Keywords

• anthropology
• arctic
• co-management
• people-park relations
• protected areas
• spiritual relations