How can forest managers deal with spirituality?

What do you yourself have to do with spirituality?

Catherine: 'Originally, I am a tropical forester. As such, over the years I have worked in many different countries, where spirituality is more prevalent than in the Netherlands. For example, in Nepal, where I had to take an integration course to learn how to behave. And in Pakistan, religion is everywhere, a topic of conversation over tea. Those were triggers that gave me the idea to look further. There was no course in religion and nature in the Netherlands at that time, so I started a master's in interfaith spirituality in Nijmegen.'

What is spirituality anyway?

'Spirituality is very difficult to define because it evokes different associations in different people. The question then is: How do you delineate that for your research?

I have drawn up an approach using tools in line with the seven dimensions of religion drawn up by the Scottish scientist Ninian Smart. He asked himself: what is religion? To determine that, he named several dimensions by which you can interpret a religion. These include the material dimension such as temples or religious art, or the ethical dimension where it is about right or wrong.

I applied his dimensions to forest spirituality. Many of Smarts' dimensions were useful, for example those of rituals and stories. Within forest spirituality, I found out that the experience dimension is more comprehensive. I therefore divided it into subdimensions. Experience of the sublime, for example, which is about the wilderness that sometimes you also find scary. But people also have experience of connection, for example when they come face to face with an animal. The experience of healing, which is often used by nature coaches. All these dimensions of experience are very influential.'

To what extent have these spiritual values permeated the Netherlands?

'In practice, we see an increase in people who are spiritually engaged with forests in the Netherlands. The 'God in the Netherlands' reports mentioned an increase in non-organised spirituality in recent decades, although this flattened out in their latest report in 2016

Many people seek out nature to have spiritual experiences. Forest managers are also seeing an increase in spiritual activities in the forest, such as yoga or forest bathing (walking slowly and mindfully through the forest).'

You did research on forest management plans in the Netherlands. Tell us about that.

'Forest management plans focus primarily on ecology, but in the Netherlands cultural history and nature experience also occupy an important place. In our country, recreational pressure is very high, with almost 18 million inhabitants and only 11 per cent of the country under forest. We suffer much more from all that pressure than in most other countries.'

How can managers deal with these recreational pressures and still provide the peace needed for spiritual activities?

'Not everyone who visits forest does so from spiritual motives. Many plans focus on recreation and nature experience, but far from all of them are spiritual. Only if a plan talks about nature experience leading to wonder and fascination it falls within spirituality.

'Master students and myself have interviewed forest managers about this. Forest managers can commit to maintaining tranquillity in their areas, or construct parking areas further from the forest. Or create sightlines, and leave whimsical trees.'

What did those forest managers tell you?

'Forest managers, especially of large public lands, do not initially look at spirituality. But they do see more and more spiritual activities in their forests and, as a result, they realise its importance.

What bothers them is that visitors for their spiritual practices are doing things that are risky for the forest, for instance going outside the paths and disturbing animals, leaving objects that don't belong in the forest, or even making ritual fires on the dry heath! They also see nature coaches appearing who earn money from their activities, and then they want some of that in return for forest maintenance.

On the other hand, forest managers themselves sometimes have spiritual feelings, for example for the trees they have to mark for felling. Most see trees more or less as living beings. And the forest as a living organism, they have something to do with it. This is where the relational experience dimension comes into play.'

What does your research say about our relationship with nature?

'My research touches on discussions about how we see ourselves, about our 'worldviews': 'master', steward, partner, or participant. Those views have increasingly shifted in recent years from 'master' to 'partner' and 'participant'. I welcome that trend. For most, nature is no longer dead matter that we can use at will; there is a growing awareness that we are part of the ecological whole. I therefore see more and more common ground with the work of Indigenous philosophers who elaborate the 'participant' relationship with nature from Indigenous spiritual traditions for our postmodern times.'