Religion and environment is "match made in heaven." University of Minnesota site

	In Ethiopia the Orthodox Tewahido Church has preserved all that remains of a once-expansive forest.

September 16, 2013 — Religious groups are the original conservationists. Worldwide, spiritual organizations own 5 to 10 percent of forests, and sacred sites occur on every continent except Antarctica. An estimated 70 percent of national parks that exist today were originally preserved by spiritual groups, and some sacred sites in Mongolia and China have been quietly protected for more than 1,000 years.

This all makes perfect sense to Martin Palmer, secretary general of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation. “Manifestations of the divine do not take place in car parks or on the top of high rises, but on mountains, in deserts and by rivers,” he says.

	Author Rachel Nuwer is a freelance science journalist

“We relax more when we’re in nature rather than striding through a city, and when we relax perhaps we’re more capable of believing we just heard the voice of God....”

Link here for more.



This article by freelance writer Rachel Newer looks at the historic relationship between sacredness and conservation in relation to land use and the role of priests and temples in protecting sacred spaces. The feature considers examples of sacred conservation from India, China, Ethiopia and Japan as well as from the USA. It describes ARC's role in brokering an understanding between conservationists and religious organisations over the last 25 years.

It's encouraging to see how sympathetically a scientific publication can reflect the work done by faith groups in pursuit of what must, of course, be a common goal - the preservation and care of nature.
Read A Match Made in Heaven by Rachel Nuwer here.