ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests broadening the management levers of human behaviour in Jamaica's protected areas beyond economic benefits and moral persuasion to include other drivers of behavioural change such as the spiritual. The indigenous Windward Maroon culture is examined for notions that parallel the western conservation concept of ‘setting apart’ areas for special uses and sacredness. The Maroons have occupied lands in the Blue and John Crow Mountains and Cockpit Country for more than three centuries. Only a few examples were found of sacred natural sites primarily associated with supernatural healing, burial and refuge. However, their sparse presence is significant in the Jamaican context of widespread ecological degradation and erosion of Maroon culture. Second, a discourse is initiated on how such sites can be integrated with, and even improve, protected area management by restoring and incorporating a sense of the sacred among protected area beneficiaries. The relationship between the protected area and sacred natural sites is seen to be synergistic since incorporating these sites into protected area management will help to preserve their knowledge and transmission within the Windward Maroon community and in turn reinforce the culture of Jamaica's only remaining indigenous group.
