he gorgeous yellow-eared parrot rabbis hold welcoming ceremonies for designed to keep people and wildlife apart, the spiritual lives of billions of people. In the of the Colombian Andes had Eurasian swifts returning from tropical and Asian elephants often damage crops. generally more secular, scientific West this can been reduced to just 81 birds by Africa to nest in the crevices of the Western So the Christian conservation organisation be an uncomfortable marriage; for example in 1999. Nesting only in slow- Wall (also known as the Wailing Wall). A Rocha has set up a grass-roots project in Western Europe faith is considered a personal growing wax palms high in the Working alongside the International Center Bannerghatta to explore ways in which the matter, so is rarely brought into the public Faith cloud forest made the species for the Study of Bird Migration, they make elephants and farmers can co-exist. arena. That is not true, however, for most of highly vulnerable to logging and sure that the maintenance of the ancient By evoking meaningful concepts the rest of the world – and this contrast is Tthe spread of agriculture, while the local wall takes the swifts into account. that reach deep into faith traditions, growing ever more marked. Catholic community used the trees’ fronds conservationists have been able to galvanise in on Palm Sunday in processions and church SACRED SAFEGUARDS people in very different ways. In Tibet, for FAITH IN THE FUTURE decorations. Things looked bleak. This meeting of religion and conservation instance, Buddhist monks work with the Last year the Pew Research Center predicted But then conservationists began is having great success around the world Snow Leopard Trust to monitor and protect that by 2050 just 13 per cent of the global collaborating with priests. A combination – and that’s true of all faiths. For example, this Endangered high-altitude cat. The snow population – mainly people in Europe – nature of education and religious insight brought in the Middle East BirdLife International leopard has long been persecuted by local will describe themselves as unaffiliated to a about a change in religious practice and a and local Muslim communities are drawing pastoralists because of livestock predation religion or atheist, compared with 16 per cent The major religions of the greater involvement in the local community. upon the Islamic concept of hima, or a – as described in the February issue of BBC in 2010. The report states: “With the exception COMPLEMENTS There are now more than 1,000 yellow- sacred area, to safeguard a variety of sites Wildlife – but the monks encourage farmers of Buddhists [who have a low birth rate and world have an increasingly eared parrots and the number is rising each that are rich in biodiversity but lie outside to see the cats as sacred and deserving of the ageing population], all of the world’s major SHARED year. It is one of the greatest success stories formally protected lands. Buddhist precept of compassion. religious groups are poised for at least some important role to play in in parrot conservation. Bannerghatta National Park in southern These, and many other examples, highlight growth in absolute numbers in the coming PLANET BROADCAST ON conservation, says Radio 4 Thousands of kilometres away another India is threatened by the rapid expansion the importance of seeing species and their decades.” It’s an increasingly religious world, bird is also benefiting from religious of the mighty metropolis of Bangalore; habitats not only as the focus of conservation and religion is known to be a strong driver

Illustrations by Clare Nicholas Clare by Illustrations producer Mary Colwell. involvement. In Jerusalem in early March, people are settling in the buffer zone programmes but also as key components of of attitudes towards nature.

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Given this inescapable fact, it’s instructive And there are many similar churches. involved in conflict resolution and wrangling to look at the distribution of faiths around This is why Meg Lowman of the California over land rights, while raising conservation the globe. Christianity is widespread, Academy of Sciences is working with awareness. Supported by the Vatican, this with strongholds in South America, the local faith leaders to help the 3,500 Coptic collaboration is a new step forward for Philippines, sub-Saharan Africa and North churches conserve their sacred forests, protecting the Amazon. America – some of the planet’s most which are under intense pressure. The Catholic Church is potentially a huge biodiverse areas. The Amazon rainforest, Ethiopia’s population has tripled since force in wildlife conservation. It has more for example, sits entirely within strongly 1970, dramatically escalating demand for than one billion members and its influence Catholic countries, while the population firewood and building materials – over is even wider – it has a single figurehead of the Philippines is almost exclusively who is a global superstar with the Catholic. Christianity dominates the ear of many world leaders, as well as rainforests of the Congo, too. IT’S AN INCREASINGLY RELIGIOUS a unified structure with an efficient The Muslim world is less system for disseminating information. widespread, yet the vast majority of WORLD, AND RELIGION IS KNOWN Consider the impact of Pope Francis’s the wildlife-rich rainforests of South- environmental encyclical Laudato East Asia are in Muslim countries. TO BE A STRONG DRIVER OF Si, published in the run-up to the Because overall numbers of Muslims COP21 climate conference in Paris last are predicted to increase by 73 per ATTITUDES TOWARDS NATURE. December. Widely praised, it is both cent over the next 30 years, Islamic powerful and moving. beliefs about nature will become Laudato Si gives Catholics the more prevalent over a greater area. the past 40 years the country has suffered mandate to act for species conservation: So it is undeniable that religion is going such severe deforestation that just 3 per “Greater investment needs to be made in to play an increasingly significant part in cent of its tree cover remains. The forests research aimed at understanding more humanity’s attitude to the natural world. And are now “critical conservation areas for a fully the functioning of ecosystems and as the yellow-eared parrot, Eurasian swift, large proportion of Ethiopia’s remaining adequately analysing the different variables Asian elephant and snow leopard show, this biodiversity”, says Lowman, who believes associated with any significant modification has the potential to bring enormous benefits. that the work of the Coptic Priests keeps of the environment. Because all creatures the remaining trees standing. are connected, each must be cherished BENEFITS OF BELIEVERS The Latin American church network with love and respect, for all of us as living Primary forest surrounds a small Ethiopian REPAM works on an even larger scale. It creatures are dependent on one another. Orthodox church in South Gondar, in the brings together Christian institutions in nine Each area is responsible for the care of north of the country. It’s a lush patch of countries that have contact with the Amazon this family. This will require undertaking bright green amid a desert of overgrazed rainforest. Its aim is to protect the forest land, and is an oasis for insects and birds. and its traditional peoples by helping those Without the church, it would almost certainly have been grazed to nothing.

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a careful inventory of the species which it hosts, with a view to developing programmes and strategies of protection with particular care for safeguarding species heading towards extinction.” If the Catholic world, in co-operation with scientists and conservation groups, acted on this statement then the global outlook for biodiversity would surely be very different. Collaboration between religions and conservation is already producing results, inspiring others to follow. In Bali, one of the threats to the olive ridley turtle was the use of its flesh in Hindu ceremonies that – ironically – venerate the turtle as the sustainer of life (in Hindu mythology, a giant turtle supports the Earth on its back). Local priests worked with the World Wildlife Fund to change the practice by re-interpreting holy texts to show that real meat wasn’t necessary, and that drawings or rice cakes could be used as a substitute. Indeed turtle meat is now banned from most religious ceremonies. But Bali’s Hindu priests went further. Today they are actively encouraging the wider population to conserve turtles on local beaches. Conservation NGOs often find this kind of outreach to local communities very difficult to achieve alone, but here the impetus for action is based not on data but on a faith’s appeal to the soul.

HEARTS AND MINDS to conservation. Sacred habitats Conservation is not just about presenting – from forest groves to rivers, the science and a plan full of neat bullet mountains, lakes, springs and caves points: it needs to win the hearts and minds – are found all over the world. These holy of communities. By understanding what is places, specific to local traditions, provide central to people’s lives and appealing to the a network of habitats and their species crucially, hope is built into the system. stories they tell and the narratives that have that join up around the globe. Despite initial wariness on both sides, most meaning, saving species and landscapes Faiths interpret the world through story, religious groups and conservationists can become part of daily life. are showing more and more Take Misali Island, off the coast of convergence. Some conservation Tanzania. It’s an area exceptionally rich COLLABORATION BETWEEN projects may be small and local in in corals that was officially protected by focus, but others are pan-national the Tanzanian government in 1998 – RELIGIONS AND CONSERVATION IS with hugely ambitious aims. Though but the locals, who are Muslim, simply many will find the combination of continued to overfish and dynamite ALREADY PRODUCING RESULTS, religion and conservation difficult to the reef. In the end, the solution was accept, only co-operation and mutual contained in a religious story that built INSPIRING OTHERS TO FOLLOW. respect between all communities on older, indigenous beliefs that the can reverse the terrifying prospect island and surrounding sea were of mass extinction and widespread home to ancestral spirits. poetry and art, requiring an imaginative environmental destruction, which at the Misali gets its name from the Swahili word approach to the Earth that works at the level moment look ever more likely. Faith in msala, which means ‘prayer mat’. Tradition of the heart. Humanity has communicated nature has the potential to change the has it that the Muslim prophet Hadhara great truths in this way long before science. face of the Earth. appeared to the island’s fishermen and asked Faiths also use ideas that tend to be missing for a mat to pray on. When none could be from purely scientific approaches, such as MARY COLWELL gave a version of this essay found he declared that the island, which joy, kindness, self-sacrifice, simplicity, hope, at 2015’s Nature Matters event: www.new faces toward Mecca, would serve as his mat obedience, awe and wonder – all of which networksfornature.org.uk. She is a writer and – and thus become holy. By revisiting these are universally felt and understood. producer: www.marycolwell.blogspot.co.uk important stories, CARE International, an Religions bind their faithful across + FIND OUT MORE NGO, and Misali’s fishermen worked together racial and political divides, and often their to bring an end to the dynamiting of reefs. unelected leaders are released from short- Shared Planet discussed religion and nature in 2013: http://bbc.in/231eVdV Indigenous beliefs can be indispensable termism to focus on long-term goals. And,

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