Aike P. Rots is Associate Professor in Asian Studies at the University of Oslo. He is the author of Shinto, Nature and Ideology in Contemporary Japan: Making Sacred Forests (Bloomsbury, 2017) and the coeditor of Sacred Heritage in Japan (with Mark Teeuwen; Routledge, 2020). Other recent publications discuss tree-planting projects in Tohoku, sacred groves in Okinawa, and the politics of World Heritage in East Asia. He is leader of the project Whales of Power: Aquatic Mammals, Devotional Practices, and Environmental Change in Maritime East Asia, funded by the European Research Council (Starting Grant, 2019-2023).