The coastline of Bangladesh spreads over 711 kilometers containing a wide network of river systems that drain the Ganges-BrahmaputraMeghna river system's massive flow. The coastline is separated into a\npacific-type deltaic eastern zone, a central deltaic zone, and an Atlantictype deltaic western zone (M. R. Islam 2004). The Encyclopedia of Flora and Fauna of Bangladesh (Volumes 3 and 4), released in 2008, listed 156 species in the coastal zone of Bangladesh, including brown algae, red algae, green algae and five different seagrass species (Kamal and Short 2009). In terms of faunal resources, the maritime environment\nof Bangladesh has 442 fish species and 36 shrimp species (Ben Belton, et al. 2011). \n\nAround fifty million people from various ethnic groups reside in the coastline zone, encompassing thirty-two percent of the country's total population. Although the Banglaees are the most populous ethnic group, ten other ethnic communities live along the coastal zone of the country: Chakma, Khyang, Marma, Munda, Murang, Rakhine, Tanchangya, Tripura, Mahato, and Pundra Khatrio (Kamal, et al. 2001). The distinctive water-land-forest ecosystem of this area has significantly shaped food production and consumption patterns among these communities throughout history. \n\nThe coastal inhabitants are exposed to both climatic, natural disasters and manmade hazards. This paper aims to discuss the food production system in the coastal area of Bangladesh as well as the impact of alarming climate change on the general food security of the region

The first thing I learned when I began my field work in the Province of Ifugao was that my time was not my own. Time belonged to the gods and spirits that would unexpectedly appear in dreams and give omens compelling the people to seek their mumbaki (ritual specialist) for guidance.

Dongjo Yoo, a renowned installation artist, focuses primarily on environmental projects, specifically projects related to water. His most notable work is the Water Performance Installation Project, an eleven-year project starting from 2014, involving eleven lakes and rivers in ten countries. Under the motto of “there is no ‘water’ in the presence of water, and there is ‘water’ in the absence of water,” the project has been a large success. To highlight the importance of the environment, Mr. Yoo is looking forward to expanding his project to areas along the Silk Roads where water is a scarce and valuable resource.

Wrestling is an intense struggle between two people based on strength, endurance, and patience. In addition to power and physical capacity, this contest also requires mental strength and control of the body with the mind. Wrestling has some characteristics that reflect people’s physical struggle with nature under various circumstances. As a consequence of these two complementary aspects, this activity has long been part of relations, competitions, and some kinds of claims of superiority among human beings. Wrestling, for all these reasons, is one of the oldest sports in the history of humanity. At the same time, this means that rich traditions, rituals, and practices have formed and evolved around wrestling in different parts of the world. Therefore, it is possible to say that this sport, in a way, represents one of the aspects of the cultural accumulation of humanity, the knowledge, practices, and rituals transmitted from one generation to the next. This fact also leads us to think of the regional, national, and local forms of wrestling that may be regarded in the context of diversity of cultural expressions. Within this perspective and the focus of this paper, traditional oil wrestling embodies a living heritage with various cultural characteristics. It might be helpful to provide some information on the history and main elements of traditional oil wrestling before elaborating upon its value from the perspective of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) identity, transmission, and safeguarding efforts.\nTraditional oil wrestling is performed on a grass field by wrestlers called who are doused in olive oil and wear a type of hand-stitched, tight-fitting, knee-covering leather pants called . The roots of the relation between Turks and wrestling may be traced back long before its presence in Anatolia and the Republic of Turkey, to Central Asia in

Women in the Philippine fisheries are often labeled as “the Invisible Fisherfolk”. Their pre-harvesting contributions are multifaceted, involving bait gathering, net fixing, and meal preparation for their husband while post-harvesting activities include bringing the fish to the shore, sorting, and cleaning of the daily catch. Women are normally associated with household chores. They are rarely admitted as an essential factor in pursuing their livelihood in the coastal communities. In most cases, women’s participation in fishing communities is neither socially recognized nor economically compensated. The primary goal for the development of women in the fisheries is to empower them, make them productive and self-sufficient. In this way, they can have an equal status as partners in promoting the living conditions of their own families and communities.

In Palau, the healing process after birth is an essential part of a woman’s reproduction and life cycle. Great emphasis on and development of rituals have persisted to ensure women’s childbearing and rearing capabilities. Processes and details in carrying out this ceremony establish connections among family and clan members for the new mother and her husband. It is a celebration of the success and joy of the first child, the family, and relatives.

I arrived in Hue City by the Perfume River (Sông Hương) on a rainy afternoon in September 2019 to spend about a month gathering materials and data related to the preservation of the Hue Imperial Complex. One of my friends was waiting for me at a local bar together with his Bach Ho (White Tiger) master, a man in his sixties wearing a black martial arts shirt. After greeting one another, we began our conversation by taking about Hue’s recent conservation projects and local landscapes, before my friend’s master touched upon the history and the heyday of Bach Ho martial arts (the 1960s to the early 2000s). Indeed, Vietnamese people have created their own martial arts to boost their health and protect their homeland against aggressive and more powerful foreign invaders for a few thousand years. As Van Dung highlight: “martial arts contributed glorious pages to the history, appeared as a proof for resolute spirit, inexhaustible struggle, fearless of death, difficulty or danger and as a creative mind of people” (2017, p. 27). The Vietnamese philosophy of martial arts is “the Truth—the Goodness—the Beauty”; it attempts to advance Vietnamese culture and characters by forging a sturdy body, enduring health, and a strong spirit that provides support in dealing with difficulties and hardship (Van Dung ., 2017, p. 28). Viet Nam has some of its own styles of martial arts, but due to being located at a crossroads of civilizations, various martial arts from China, Korea, and Japan have been brought into and mixed with native ones, including kung fu, karate, judo, aikido, and taekwondo (Van Dung , 2016, p. 69). With the tremendous growth of this industry, martial arts have become an integral part of sports and physical activity culture, conveying not only lifestyles but also educational value and entertainment (Ko ., 2010, p. 3).\nHue became one of the biggest centers of martial arts in Viet Nam because it was home to the Nguyen dynasty, the final feudal society of Viet Nam (1802–45). The Nguyen dynasty fought against local rivals and also stood against Western colonialism, particularly the French invasion (Odell and Castillo, 2008, p. 82). Therefore, the practice of martial arts was very much encouraged and was stimulated through the organization of a number of nationwide martial arts competitions to select the best talents in the country (Le, 2020). Several temples were constructed, at which the masters’ skills and teaching were honored by the carving of their names on the stone columns.\nThe Hue Association of Traditional Martial Arts confirms that there are around 15 types of martial art within Hue, including Viet Vo dao, Bach Ho, Nga My, Thien Muc Son, Thieu Bao, Nam Son, Hau Quyen dao, Thieu Lam Dai Tam, and Kinh Van An. Other Vietnamese martial arts had their origins elsewhere, as noted, in countries such as China, Japan, and Korea, but Bach Ho (a genuine Vietnamese martial art) remained one of the most prevalent types of martial art in Hue City. Unfortunately, the stature of Bach Ho is fading significantly in comparison with other martial arts. This study thus aims to explore the relevance of Bach Ho in contemporary contexts and the primary impediments to its transmission. It will then propose recommendations for safeguarding and promoting Bach Ho as intangible cultural heritage for future generations. These are the primary objectives behind the selection of Bach Ho as our research topic.\nTo conduct our study, we worked closely with representatives from the Association of Traditional Martial Arts of Thua Thien Hue and different groups from the martial arts. In

Taekwondo’s Martial Art and Combat Sport Battle\nHow taekwondo became a beloved global martial art and Olympic combat sport is a fascinatingly complex story. While it encompasses numerous people, we may better understand it by focusing on two of taekwondo’s organizing bodies and their international relations efforts. On one side we have the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF), which was headed by a Republic of Korea (ROK; South Korea) army general who fought ardently for the unification of his divided homeland and wished to preserve its history and culture by propagating it via the martial art he named. Opposite the ITF is the organization now known as World Taekwondo (WT), which was responsible for much of the sport’s global popularity and for propelling it to Olympic status. These groups’ differing pedagogies and philosophies have caused practitioners to perform taekwondo distinctively depending on their affiliation, and today we can distinguish the two major styles with little difficulty. The two organizations and their leaders opposed each other for a myriad of reasons, which led to decades of bitter rivalry. Both organizations saw taekwondo as a means by which Korea could rise from the ashes of Japanese occupation and a brutal civil war to forge a new national identity (Johnson, 2018). Both sides loved taekwondo but argued and fought against each other for decades. Now considered the old guard, both have passed on taekwondo’s future to a new generation of leaders who sit on either side of the Korean border. This chapter conceptualizes the ITF–WT conflict anew within a peace studies perspective. For this multidisciplinary, qualitative study, an extensive literature review of ITF and WT styles of taekwondo, both academic and lay, was undertaken to understand the nature of the conflict. Literature for the academic field of peace studies were also reviewed, and the United States Institute of Peace’s (USIP) Cycle of Conflict (USIP, n.d.) was used to

Co-orgarnized by ICHCAP and Hue Monuments Conservation Centre (HMCC), this year’s Asia-Pacific ICH NGO Conference was held in Hue, Vietnam under the theme of ICH NGOs towards Sustainable Development of Communities.

As in other countries in Spanish-speaking Latin America (Ryan, 2011), and former Spanish colonies such as the Philippines (Gonzales, 2015), there are both longstanding indigenous fighting systems as well as more recently created warrior arts and combat sports in what is now known as Mexico. Since the early 1990s, there has been inception and steady dissemination of several invented martial arts developed in the central, Gulf, and northern regions of Mexico by Mexican martial arts veterans with decades of experience in combat sports and Asian martial arts. New martial arts are often created by experienced martial artists experiencing personal troubles within broader social crises (Jennings, 2019). In the case of the Mexican pioneers, their combative experience is aided by their research into native forms of fighting and their vision to create a unique martial

The joint inscription of Traditional Korean wrestling (Ssiruem/Ssirum) of 2018 was the first-ever and the only joint inscription on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity between the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. This inscription was decided by the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of ICH on an exceptional basis. It demonstrated “the extraordinary strength of cultural heritage for a vehicle of peace and dialogue.” The course of the joint inscription was neither smooth nor ordinary. The nominations were submitted and evaluated separately and submitted initially to different cycles. However, the apparent characteristics of a shared heritage were included in both nominations, leading to the joint inscription.

The Taumako voyaging arts include a wind-position based, systematic model of wayfinding, complex swell patterns not yet reported for other traditions, weather modification, and ancestral lights that signal the direction and distance of land. In this paper I observe that transmission of the ancient voyaging arts has promoted cultural fulfillment, and can result in greater resiliency and sustainability once a basic skill levels have been mastered and partnerships between islands have been re-established.