Secrets of the sacred hills

In many societies mountains are seen as sacred places. As such, they can have a significant impact on the cohesion of local cultures and on the conservation of the environment.

Sacred mountains highlight the key role that culture plays in influencing how people regard and treat the environment as the highest and most central values and beliefs of societies and traditions around the world.

These values and beliefs determine to a great extent which natural resources people seek to exploit and which features of the land they strive to protect. Many indigenous cultures draw vitality and cohesion from their relationship to mountains and other sacred features of the Landscape. Destroying what makes such a site sacred may undermine a culture, resuming in negative social, economic, and environmental impacts as the society falls apart and traditional controls of land are lost.