ARC's Sacred Land project
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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, launches the Sacred Land project at St Mary's Well, Willesden, in 1997 |
The Sacred Land Project was launched by the Archbishop of Canterbury in April 1997 with the aim of reviving and creating sacred sites in Britain and overseas. It
is about reminding people that the landscape where they live can be as sacred as any holy land. Read the Sacred Land Report here.
In Britain alone it involved Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and secular communities in creating and reviving inner-city and community gardens; conserving and celebrating holy wells; rediscovering and renewing pilgrimage trails; protecting trees and woodlands; regenerating community meeting places and their eco-systems; and celebrating sacred places with works of art and poems.
Key to Sacred Land's success was its mission to work with groups, not individuals, on projects that are open to the public. It was WWF’s major religious undertaking in Britain and has the backing of the principal churches, conservation and environmental organisations, and the major faiths practised in Britain.
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| In the Middle Ages every church had its own holy sepulchre – model of Christ’s tomb – to remind people that even the most ordinary village was a place where Christ had lived, died and risen again – and was therefore sacred. |
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Sacred Land has led to hundreds of projects run by faith groups along this model - some of which we know about, many of which we will never hear about.
Sacred Land after 2007: the Sacred Sites and Faith-Protected Environments Programmes
For ARC the project has moved to become a Sacred Sites Programme, with the intention of making the term "sacred site" an internationally recognised term, conferring protection by national governments and others.
The issue of protection of sacred sites reveals a fascinating difference in theological and therefore psychological understandings of sacred sites. In the Abrahamic traditions, for example, protecting nature is a natural outcome of the notion of people’s role before God as guardians, stewards or priests of creation. However for other traditions, notably Hinduism and Shintoism, it is we who should recognise that we are protected by nature.
This led to an agreement at the Faiths and Forests meeting at Visby in August 2007 that ARC should undertake work to help each major tradition to define its own theology of sacred sites, and in particular to outline their position on respecting and protecting those sites that are either sacred to other traditions and/or which they share with other traditions.
ARC is now in active discussion to develop this idea into a formal programme incorporating alongside this the commitments made with WWF International at the World Parks Congress in 2003 to have sacred sites agreed as a term of international protection and the development of a sacred sites programme with UNDP.
Beyond Belief
In 2006 WWF-International and ARC published a ground-breaking document titled Beyond Belief which explored the role that faith can play in the protection of sacred forests, mountains, rivers, lakes, seas and deserts. Link
here for more details, including a full download of the document.
The ancient meadows of Gotland
Meanwhile, new sacred sites are being declared as protected or cared for. For example, during the meeting on Faiths and Forests at Visby in August 2007 the Church of Sweden declared that the endangered meadows of Gotland, of which the Church owns the majority, would now be classified as Church of Sweden Protected Environments.
Sacred sites in Mongolia
In 2002, the monks of the newly revived Gandan Monastery helped by ARC, WWF Mongolia and the World Bank, published a collection of ancient sutras, or sacred texts, entitled Sacred Sites in Mongolia. The texts describe the sacred geography and rituals of 80 sacred sites whose use had been suppressed under communism. Link to our Asian Buddhist Network section for more details about this programme, which is largely financed by the World Bank.
The Forests of Lebanon
The Maronite Church – representing Lebanon’s most popular form of Christianity – owns a large proportion of the Harissa forest and in 2000 the Church made the unprecedented move of issuing a public pledge to preserve its forest. With the support of local conservation group AFDC (Association of Forest Development and Conservation) and ARC, the Patriarch pledged to make the Harissa Forest the world’s first “Maronite Protected Environment”. Link here for more details.
Download the Sacred Land Information Pack from our Downloads section
Link here to read an article on sacred gardens in Dutch, published in the Friesch Dagblad
on May 31, 2007, and featuring ARC's Sacred Land project.
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