ABSTRACT
Tropical and subtropical broadleaved forests once covered southern and central China, but the spread of wet-rice agriculture, intentional burning and intensive silvicultural systems the land use patterns associated with Han colonization of southern China starting early in the first millennium left forests in small and highly fragmented patches. The absence of the term fengshuilin raises important questions about the ways in which feng shui belief and practice may bear on the environment as well as the particular conditions that enabled the survival of feng shui forests in specific locales. Feng shui forests and temple forests associated with Buddhist and Daoist temples and monasteries were among the only remaining stands of natural vegetation in areas of dense or moderate human settlement. Interviews with feng shui masters and many other villagers revealed that fengshuilin remain essential components of a vitalist cosmology premised upon managing village environs to optimize the spirit and vigour of landscapes and their living and deceased inhabitants.
