| الوصف: |
Contents: Editor's Introduction by Melissa S. Dale The editor reflects on this issue's new articles, which focus on climate change as it is being experienced across Asia, and the different local responses it has provoked. From China to India to Southeast Asia, the relationship of nature to each local worldview shapes how communities view climate change, its effects, and their responses to it. Fengshui Forests as A Socio-natural Reservoir in the Face of Climate Change and Environmental Transformation by Christopher R. Coggins and Jesse Minor Chinese lineage villages are social-ecological systems (SESs) designed according to principles of fengshui (“wind-water”). Fengshui is a composite of cosmological beliefs and landscape management strategies, including the protection of sacred groves, aimed at optimizing the collective, long-term wellbeing of lineage groups by enhancing long-term natural and social resilience. Along with other adaptive management features, village fengshui forests promote social-ecological vigor by conserving plant, soil, and water resources, enhancing social memory, and serving as living models of resilience in the face of social, economic, and political changes. Modern programs to transform rural communities through state-led agricultural production systems included bans on fengshui practice and the destruction of forests. Many communities protected their fengshui forests, providing contemporary opportunities for local, regional, national, and international conservation initiatives incorporating locally preserved forests. Drawing on field studies in 57 villages in five provinces, we document the centrality of fengshui forests for the protection of biodiversity and regional resilience. We examine post-reform environmental policy, including state initiatives to map, describe, and protect fengshui forests in conjunction with large-scale reforestation efforts. Supranational agreements on biodiversity protection and climate change mitigation provide impetus for state support of community-based . |
