In June and July, we published two new sacred site reports and fully updated one other, which we invite you to read:

Mount Kinabalu, Malaysia — Emerging from the mist that covers the island of Borneo, multi-peaked Mount Kinabalu is known to the indigenous Kadazan as akina-balu, resting place of the ancestral spirits. It plays a key role in their creation stories and legends, which inform traditional land relationships and conservation practices, and it is also home to a spectrum of exotic plants and endangered animal species. From 1975 to 1999, copper mining on the mountainside damaged the landscape, contaminated the water supply, and left behind millions of tons of tailings that continue to pose an environmental threat. Meanwhile, the area has become increasingly exposed to eco-social pressures stemming from logging, oil-palm plantations, settlements and tourism, while the Kadazan are experiencing threats to the durability of their traditions. The Kadazan, NGOs and the Sabah government, however, are taking steps to respond to these threats and preserve the mountain’s cultural and ecolological treasures.

Rila Monastery, Bulgaria — Rila Monastery is a symbol of national identity representing the persistence of Bulgarian culture and faith despite centuries of foreign rule, and the preservation of the surrounding land, the Rila Monastery Nature Park, is intimately linked with Bulgarian Orthodox Christianity, the dominant national religion. As Bulgaria emerges from its recent post-communist era, the government grapples with a legacy of corruption and the pressures of rapid development, even as it positions Bulgaria as a preeminent destination for ecotourism. As part of that strategy, a management plan for the park has been drafted with the participation of the church, establishing specific strategies for managing tourism and conserving plant and animal species. Lingering bureaucratic obstacles, legal conflicts between church and state, and controversies over hydropower, however, hinder Bulgaria’s public commitment to sustainable development in the Nature Park.

San Francisco Peaks, Arizona (updated) — From many places in northern Arizona, the horizon is dramatically marked by three 12,000-foot volcanic peaks that rise out of the Colorado Plateau south of the Grand Canyon and north of Flagstaff. The San Francisco Peaks are sacred to 13 tribes, including the Navajo and the Hopi. However, it is the U.S. Forest Service, not the tribes, that determines what activities can take place on the Peaks, and they have permitted a ski resort since 1979. In 2009, the resort received legal clearance to use reclaimed wastewater to make additional snow — a desecration of the sacred slopes and a threat to the pure drinking water supplied by the mountain aquifer.