For the Sake of Forests and Gods documents the consequences of nonstate actors impinging on the existence of Indigenous peoples in the remote highlands of Palawan Island, the Philippines. Nimble, focused, and well-funded, religious and environmental organizations increasingly assume governmental authority over the lives and livelihoods of the Pala'wan people within their ancestral territories.

Wolfram H. Dressler traces these actors' history and contemporary practices, revealing how they bypass the state to govern the less governed. In the highlands, environmental NGOs valorize customary objects and practices to suppress swidden and support forest conservation, while evangelical missionaries regulate Pala'wan beliefs, health, and hygiene.

Bridging material studies and biopolitics, For the Sake of Forests and Gods explores how these nonstate actors use customary objects for comprehensive reforms of Pala'wan bodies and souls, centering on how the unique properties of the Tingkep basket mediate nonstate biopower. These reforms impact highlanders differently: some adopt biopolitical ideals willingly, others for political and economic gain. Yet others resist interventions, prioritizing family livelihoods. Ultimately, Dressler argues that Indigenous sovereignty matters more than ever as nonstate biopower intensifies in Southeast Asia's uplands.

Wolfram H. Dressler is Professor at the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Melbourne. He is the author of Old Thoughts in New Ideas, and coeditor of Nature™ Inc.

In this elegantly written book, For the Sake of Forests and Gods tells the story of the Pala'wan peoples and the pressures unravelling their social lives from ecological and spiritual practices sustaining one of the world's richest socio-ecological systems. Conservation organizations and missionaries now shape these Indigenous people's futures where the state has failed to act. Yet Dressler highlights the local complexities of those seeking "help" while striving to maintain self-determination and autonomy.

Christian Lund, University of Copenhagen:

The forested uplands in the Philippines have long been the prey of environmental and religious organizations. Their extraneous designs on the mundane and the sublime have been foisted on the indigenous populations with sanctimonious arrogance as worlds fell asunder and a hollow modernity unfolded. With a remarkable sense for detail and configuration, Wolfram Dressler guides the reader to see that the desire for indigenous autonomy is not simply a romantic folly but essential in the struggle between truth and meaning.

Sian Sullivan, Bath Spa University:

For the Sake of Forests and Gods is a powerfully written account of how protected area designations may affect longstanding Indigenous practices that have enabled these same landscapes to flourish. In revitalising the study of Indigenous materiality in political ecology and agrarian studies, Dressler draws out complexities and tensions at play as Pala'wan uplanders respond to the multiple conservation and evangelical nonstate actors who have assumed responsibility for reforming their world.

Jun Borras, International Institute of Social Studies:

This beautifully written book offers a unique perspective on understanding reforms in upland areas through the actions of diverse nonstate actors. Its global resonance lies in the insight that we cannot fully grasp state-led reforms without considering their dialectical relationship with nonstate interventions in remote upland regions. This is a must-read for both activists and academics.

Jamon Halvaksz, author of Gardens of Gold:

Dressler's work offers an important and engaging analysis of Pala'wan encounters with nonstate actors. Highly detailed in its historical and contemporary accounting of Pala'wan subjugation and resistance, it is an excellent contribution to regional ethnography and more broadly to research on postcolonial frontiers.

Carol J. Pierce Colfer, author of Masculinities in Forests:

For the Sake of Forests and Gods is a fascinating read. Portraying an informed perspective on swidden agriculture, Wolfram H. Dressler captures the 'conjuncture'—redolent with local meaning—of material and spiritual features, NTFPs and ritual in Pala'wan.

Eulalio R. Guieb III, UGAT, The Anthropological Association of the Philippines:

Wolfram Dressler's For the Sake of Forests and Gods critically challenges the foundations of development discourses that drive state and nonstate interventions amid complex global-local power dynamics. Dressler explores how these policies impact the Pala'wan people, whose contested forests form the Philippines' "last ecological frontier." The book reveals the ironic invocation of nature's spirits and gods by various actors—encroaching forces and resistors alike—exposing the violence in governing nature and underscoring the ties between nature and justice.