Katsuji Iwahashi

Katsuji Iwahashi is Deputy Director of the Secretarial Department of Jinja Honcho, the central office of Shinto shrines in Japan. He has been involved in international communication and inter-religious dialogue at Jinja Honcho for over twenty years, thus supporting the dissemination of Shinto beliefs and practices worldwide. In 2005, Katsuji completed an MA degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in the UK, with a dissertation entitled The Shrine Reduction Policy: policy and protest in Wakayama prefecture. For the last decade, Katsuji has been a leading figure in the advancement of forest conservation from the perspective of religious Shinto practices, for instance through his collaboration with the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC). ARC is a secular UK based body that helps the world’s major faiths develop their own environmental programmes based on core teachings, beliefs and practices.