"This volume focuses on the tree, as a cultural and biological form, and examines the concept of folk value and its implications for biocultural conservation. Folk value refers to the value of the more-than-human living world to cultural cohesion and survival, as opposed to individual well-being. This field of value, comprising cosmological, aesthetic, eco-erotic, sentimental, mnemonic value and much more, serves as powerful motivation for the local performance of environmental care. The motivation to maintain and conserve ecology for the purpose of cultural survival will be the central focus of this book, as the conditions of the Anthropocene urgently require the identification, understanding and support of enduring, self-perpetuating biocultural associations. The geographical scope is broad with chapters discussing different tree species from the Americas and the Caribbean, East Asia, Eurasia and Australia and Africa. By focusing on the tree, one of the most reliably cross-culturally-valued and cross-culturally-recognized biological forms, and one which invariably defines expansive landscapes, this work illuminates how folk value binds the survival of more-than-human life forms with the survival of specific peoples in the era of biocultural loss, the Anthropocene. As such, this collection of cross-cultural cases of tree folk value represents a low hanging fruit for the larger project of exploring the power of cultural value of the more-than-human living world. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of conservation, biodiversity, biocultural studies and environmental anthropology"--
This volume focuses on the tree, as a cultural and biological form, and examines the concept of folk value and its implications for biocultural conservation.
1. Introduction to Tree Folk Value: Meaning-full Trees, a Thriving
Living World, Cultural Survival I. The Americas and the Caribbean
2. Becoming
tree, becoming memory: social-ecological fabrics in Pewen (Araucaria
araucaria) landscapes of the southern Andes
3. White Pine: The Tree That
Sparked Peace, Revolution, and Insurrection
4. Pepperwood: Sustainably and
Ethically Expanding Commercial Use of an Undervalued Tree and Cultural
Keystone Species?
5. Nyames Altar: A Cultural History of the God tree in
Jamaica
6. "Paddle with the Tide": Nuu-Chah-Nulth and Western Redcedar
Coevolution II. Eurasia and Australia
7. Chestnut Time and Chestnut Place:
Conserving Chestnut-Ness (Kestanelik) in Turkey
8. Hawthorn in Ireland: a
rich heritage of folklore, fact and fantasy
9. The Carob as a Blessed or
Accursed Tree
10. Plant pathogens in emotional landscapes: olive stakeholders
and Xylella outbreak in Apulia, Southern Italy
11. Local cultural values of
Persian walnut in Iran III. East Asia
12. How Nuaulu Sago Palms Feature in
Debates Around the Measurement of Plant Use and Valuation
13. Revisiting the
Folk Value of Kitayama Sugi under contemporary cultural changes IV. Africa
14. Djinn-etics of the Argan Tree: Navigating vegetal human Hybrid Kinship
15. The Folk Value of Eucalyptus, Cedar, and Olive in Northwestern Ethiopia
Jeffrey Wall is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Ethnobiology and holds a PhD in Natural Resources from Cornell University, USA.
