Preface to Cultural and Spiritual Significance of Nature in Protected Areas: Governance, Management and Policy

The work of natural and cultural heritage conservation continues to be enriched and challenged by the disciplinary specialisations and cultural backgrounds of its practitioners. Nowhere is this more evident than in the governance and management of protected and conserved areas. This situation has become increasingly evident to us, the editors of this volume, during our co-participation in professional workshops and academic conferences and during fieldwork undertaken together in the Mongolian Altai (Ch. 11, this volume). Our interactions have created opportunities to explore a number of current conservation questions; concerning, for example, how nature-culture integration might be better conceptualised and how different, disciplinary-based value sets come into play—and can become contested—in protected area management. For us, deep reflection and academic inquiry are necessary in building interdisciplinary bridges and developing new practices, policies, and ways-of-doing, and necessarily based on research concerning the nature of heritage, the culture of nature, and landscape-scale conservation