Leslie Sponsel

Leslie Sponsel
University of Hawaii · Anthropology

Doctor of Philosophy

About

86
Publications
12,198
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
992
Citations

Publications

Publications (86)
Chapter
Throughout human prehistory and history, human impacts on biodiversity reached successively higher thresholds. The net cumulative impact of humanity reduced biodiversity. However, at the human population level, the types, intensity, and frequency of human impacts on biodiversity vary tremendously through space and time, depending on the particular...
Article
Full-text available
Environmental issues and problems are serious; some are getting worse, and occasionally new ones are still being discovered (Flannery 2010; Meyers and Kent 2005; Ripple et al. 2017) [...]
Article
Sarah M. Pike, For the Wild: Ritual and Commitment in Radical Eco-Activism (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017), ix-xi + 293 pp., $34.95 (pbk), ISBN: 9780520294967.
Article
Glenn D. Paige pioneered in the revolutionary development of a far-reaching transformation of science, academia, and society from a killing to a nonkilling worldview, values, and attitudes. For six decades, anthropology has been accumulating scientific empirical evidence and rational arguments demonstrating that nonkilling societies exist, thereby...
Article
Sacred ecology focuses on the religious and spiritual aspects of human–environment interactions. Here it is illustrated in general by common environmental themes that have been identified in major world religions. It is further illustrated by the ethnographic case of the Yanomami of the Amazon area between Brazil and Venezuela based on a unique acc...
Chapter
Spiritual ecology is an arena of intellectual, emotional, and practical activity at the interface of religions and spiritualities with environments, ecologies, and environmentalisms. This article elaborates on this definition in historical perspective. Thereby it explains the meaning and significance of spiritual ecology as a quiet revolution criti...
Article
The pioneering ideas of Glenn D. Paige for a paradigm shift from killing to nonkilling are highlighted. The relevance of anthropology for this paradigm is advanced. The accumulating scientific evidence proves that nonviolent and peaceful societies not only exist, but are actually the norm throughout human prehistory and history. This scientific fac...
Article
John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker, Ecology and Religion (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2014), x + 265 pp. (pbk), $30.00, ISBN: 13:978-1-59726707-6.
Article
The accumulating scientific evidence proves beyond any doubt that nonviolent and peaceful societies not only exist, but are actually the norm throughout human prehistory and history. This article demonstrates and elucidates this scientific fact through a historical inventory of the most important empirical documentation and a summary of the most se...
Article
Most religions of the world identify one or more caves as sacred using them as extraordinary sites for meditation, ritual, art, burial, and/or related purposes. These are extraordinary places as spaces at the interface between the natural and supernatural and also between geology and biology on the one hand and religion, culture, and history on the...
Chapter
Advocacy and public anthropology are discussed as particular variants of applied anthropology using the term in its broadest sense. Examples of highlighted advocacy and public anthropologists include David Maybury-Lewis of Cultural Survival, Luisa Maffi of Terra Lingua, Robert Borofsky of the Center for Public Anthropology, Paul Farmer of Partners...
Article
Spiritual ecology explores the interface of religions and spiritualities on the one hand, and environments, ecologies, and environmentalisms on the other. As an international environmental movement, spiritual ecology involves a multitude of diverse leaders, organizations, and initiatives. They share a common concern and commitment to pursuing the v...
Article
Andrew P. Vayda’s (2014) review of my book, Spiritual Ecology: A Quiet Revolution (Sponsel 2012), is misleading for readers who have not read the book for themselves because his review is so biased and inaccurate.Vayda begins by questioning the logic of the underlying argument of the book by stating that: “…the very worsening of environmental probl...
Article
Resource depletion, environmental degradation, and related problems are not simply the results of technology and economy. The underlying cause is the collective behavior of individuals in a society, behavior that is predominantly cultural. Cultural ecology can contribute to environmental science and education as well as to the solution of environme...
Chapter
Throughout human prehistory and history, human impacts on biodiversity have reached progressively higher thresholds. The net cumulative impact of humanity has been to reduce biodiversity. However, at the population level, the types, intensity, and frequency of human impacts on biodiversity vary tremendously through space and over time, depending on...
Chapter
Ethics in anthropology basically reflects general moral principles of what is bad and what is good in terms of what one should not do and what one should do as a professional in the discipline. However, in practice the emphasis is mostly on the negative; that is, in essence to avoid harm, and most of all to research subjects. Often concern with pro...
Book
A prominent scientist and scholar documents and explains the thoughts, actions, and legacies of spiritual ecology’s pioneers from ancient times to the present, demonstrating how the movement may offer the last chance to restore a healthy relationship between humankind and nature.
Article
Life among the Yanomami: The Story of Change among the Xilixana on the Mucajai River in Brazil. John F. Peters. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 1998. 292 pp.
Article
Keeping the Peace: Conflict Resolution and Peaceful Societies around the World. Graham Kemp and Douglas P. Fry, eds. New York: Routledge, 2004. 231 pp.
Chapter
The Three Refuges chant that usually begins Buddhist ceremonies reflects the three ultimate components of Buddhism. One becomes a Buddhist by accepting and pursuing the three. The route to enlightenment commences with accepting the Dhamma [dharma] (teachings), starting with the Four Noble Truths, and then following the Noble Eightfold Path (explain...
Chapter
As our closest evolutionary relatives, nonhuman primates are integral elements in our mythologies, diets and scientific paradigms, yet most species now face an uncertain future through exploitation for the pet and bushmeat trades as well as progressive habitat loss. New information about disease transmission, dietary and economic linkage, and the c...
Chapter
Throughout human prehistory and history, human impacts on biodiversity have reached progressively higher thresholds. The net cumulative impact of humanity has been to reduce biodiversity. However, at the population level, the types, intensity, and frequency of human impacts on biodiversity vary tremendously through space and over time, depending on...
Article
Series Foreword Preface Identities, Ecologies, Rights, and Futures: All Endangered by Leslie E. Sponsel The Ainu of Japan by Richard Siddle The Akha of the Southwest China Borderlands by Cornelia Ann Kammerer The Amis of Taiwan by Hsiang-mei Cheng The Ayukawa-hamans of Japan by Masami Iwasaki-Goodman The Batak of the Philippines by James F. Eder Th...
Article
Western approaches to biodiversity are starting to recognise the relevance of local environmental knowledge and community forests, but mostly ignore the conservation potential of sacred places because of their culture bound modernism and scientism. We argue that sacred places are in effect an ancient and widespread system of community based and rel...
Article
The Yanomami of Venezuela and Brazil have become an arena of conflict and aggression in the Amazon in at least three respects: their internal aggression; the aggression among anthropologists and others concerned with them; and the external aggression against the Yanomami from Western society. As such, the Yanomami provide a microcosm of several asp...
Article
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_work.asp?id=36802
Article
The world system is increasingly impacting on indigenous societies and their habitats, largely in deleterious ways. Whereas anthropologists have tended to contribute to the power of colonial and neocolonial entities over indigenes, the author argues for greater attention to directly serving and thus contributing to the empowerment of indigenous soc...
Article
Book reviewed in this article:Biological Anthropology: Ethnobiology: Implications and Applications. Proceedings of the First International Congress of Ethnobiology (Belém, 1988), Volume 1. Darrell A. Posey and William Leslie OveralEthnobiology: Implications and Applications. Proceedings of the First International Congress of Ethnobiology (Belém, 19...
Article
In the first part of this chapter cultural evolutionism is critically analyzed in historical perspective through a concise review of those theories on Amazonia which most directly address the central theme of this book-the relationship between foraging, farming, and mobility. The second part of this essay is an initial effort toward the development...
Article
Research in Amazonia has made impressive advances since the early 1970s, yet it remains in its infancy. Simultaneously, in this region at every level old and new processes of change are intensifying, often with destructive results. -after Author
Article
It is becoming increasingly difficult for biomedical research workers to get the wild primates they consider essential for their work. Successful primate ranching could help solve the problem. In 1967 a well-known animal dealer in Colombia, Mike Tsalickis of Leticia, released over 5000 squirrel monkeys on an island in the Amazon in the hope of quic...
Article
THE International Primatological Society1 and several recent publications2-8 have pointed out the urgent need for conservation of non-human primates. The capture of live primates for exportation is a major drain on natural populations and breeding programmes are a vital need which has been emphasised by two recent events. First, the Institute for D...

Network

Cited By