Lecture: Sacred Spaces, Protected Places: Centering Local Knowledge of Bhutan’s Biocultural Landscapes in Conservation Practice

David Hecht will share details from his research and ethnographic field work in Bhutan in the Eastern Himalayas. His collaborative work demonstrates how non-western understandings of landscapes as inherently relational spaces and places, rather than a collection of natural resources in need of management, can be re-centered to encourage more inclusive and representative ways of thinking about environmental protection and community-based conservation.

David M. Hecht PhD, Integrative Conservation & Anthropology, University of Georgia
Dr. Hecht is an environmental anthropologist and conservation social scientist. He is an international research partner with the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature (RSPN), Bhutan’s oldest non-profit conservation organization. In his research, he prioritizes collaborative and participatory mapping methods to foreground local knowledge and lived experiences of complex landscapes in conservation and development arenas. David is a National Geographic Explorer and Fellow with the Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research.