This set of articles is not intended to deal comprehensively with the totality of the relationship between heritage and hunting. Rather, it is designed to emphasize the connection and bring out aspects such as sustainability, ethics, respect, and civility. The role of hunting as a way of life is emphasized. This creates heritage even if its practitioners do not recognize it as such. The heritage so created can take many forms; but in particular hunting has produced an important intangible heritage expressed through art, music, poetry, and literature to name but a few of its aspects. Finally, the set of papers shows that mandated changes affecting hunting need careful consideration; there is much to be lost if the creating force for this heritage disappears.

Kayoiura, located at the most easterly point of Omijima Island, Nagato City, Japan, is a small fishing village where community-based coastal whaling took place from late 1600 to early 1900. Today, more than 100 years since the end of whaling, the community maintains a number of cultural properties, both tangible and intangible, dedicated to the spirits of whales, including prayers for the whales given daily by two elderly Buddhist nuns. This article suggests that these cultural properties convey the former whaling community's ethics and spirituality with a strong sense of reciprocity that acknowledges the undeniable human dependency on other lives. It is argued that such spirituality has an important implication for our understanding of sustainability. Whaling is no doubt one of the most contentious issues in today's environmental debates, where divisive arguments collide over a wide range of issues. Although any study on whaling would play a role in the debate, this article's intention is elsewhere: to acknowledge the importance of ethics and spirituality as intangible cultural heritage and their role in sustainability debate.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I would like to acknowledge the generous support provided by Mr. Fujii, director of the Nagato Whale Museum in organizing the fieldwork in Nagato. His passion, willingness, and commitment to the local community provided immense support for this study. I am grateful for the people at Kayoi who accommodated me and shared their knowledge, experiences, and many stories. I am particularly indebted to obii-sama, the Hosen-an nuns, for allowing me to hear the stories of their lives as well as record the sound around Hosen-an, including their prayers. I wish for the safety and prosperity of the people who live with and care for the natural environment and the spirits of all beings.

A divide has emerged between traditional allies as environmental protections increasingly constrict efforts to support the preservation of cultural heritage. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service addressed this debate by hosting an open forum on the current policies for the hunting of migratory birds. Proposed changes could end the granting of exemptions to Native American tribes, who use golden eagles and feathers in religious ceremonies, and would destroy the cultural and religious significance of the birds for the tribes. Such stringent environmental legislation not only threatens to undermine the importance of cultural preservation but also neglects an opportunity to strengthen the broader conservation movement by increasing involvement through the valuing of both the physical existence of a species and also its broader cultural significance. A study of the Hopi tribe of Arizona demonstrates the importance of flexibility and exemptions.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I would like to thank Alexander Bauer for his guidance and support throughout the process of researching and writing this article.

There is a saying that Africa is the festival continent. Throughout the year in towns and villages across the continent, colorful and vibrant religious, harvest, fertility, and cultural festivals are held. Bare-hand fishing competition among thousands of fishermen, equipped with a hand net and large gourd, is the main event of the cultural extravaganza at Argungu in Kebbi State in northwestern Nigeria. The competitors splash into the stream, scouring the water for huge freshwater fish. The Argungu fishing festival (Fashin Ruwa) is a celebration of life. It is a tool of conserving natural resources, maintaining and promoting traditional life. It is the precursor of today's fishery management measure. The local people believe they have been fishermen for all time. The effective conservation of natural resources is closely linked to the use of the local knowledge and hence the life of the community. It is also part of an ancient fertility ritual which, from the point of view of the local Kebbawa people, is the most important aspect of the occasion. The festival takes place usually in February after all agricultural work is finished. It marks the end of the growing season, and it opens the fishing season with a bang.

In 2005 foxhunting was prohibited by an act of parliament in England. The Hunting Act 2004 forbade the highly formal and ritualized hunting of foxes with packs of hounds and thus brought to an end a practice that had been present in the countryside for some 200 years. In this article I explore the complexities of foxhunting as a social and cultural practice prior to the ban as well as the nature of the ban as it relates to killing foxes. I then explore the effects of the ban in terms of how, from the perspectives of the supporters of foxhunting, it is experienced as an attack on cherished notions of community, rural life, belonging, and connectivity with the countryside.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I would like to thank Captain Brian Fanshawe and Captain Rupert Inglesant for their invaluable suggestions. I would also like to thank Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, who still has the patience to read drafts and unpick muddled thinking and writing.

The debate leading up to the ban on hunting with dogs in England and Wales in 2005 focused on the practical aspects such as the possible economic and social affect and issues of animal welfare. The relationship between hunting and the landscape was not prioritized, nor was it acknowledged that hunting contributed to regional and social identities. This article explores the relationship between hunting and landscape in the “shires” of the East Midlands, where modern hunting developed as part of the radical landscape changes experienced from the late eighteenth century. It examines why hunting is not recognized within national initiatives to map historic landscape character and suggests that the lacunae is the result of established academic agendas, which focus on long-term processes of change, to facilitate the creation of a common European landscape heritage. As a result distinctive regional identities and landscape character are ignored and the modern landscape is depoliticized.

This article seeks to relate hunting practices, of which some good examples have been given in this volume, to the way such practices are dealt with in the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage 2003. The extraordinary ubiquity of hunting behavior, ritual, and representation creates an enormous field of study, which can only be touched lightly by such an international legal instrument.