The environment as sacred ground: interactions between environmental and religious groups are increasing in frequency and importance - Religion

A LONGTIME SOURCE of societal change, religion has the potential to affect fundamentally how humans relate to the natural environment. Ritual was central in regulating the use of trees, rivers, and other resources by indigenous peoples and could conceivably be adapted to other cultures. More broadly, the values that mold' our perspective of nature "come primarily from religious worldviews and ethical practices," according to Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Harvard University's Center for the Environment.

Given the power of religion to shape our views of nature, religious teachings about the natural world in this era could influence how quickly or easily the world makes the transition to sustainable economies. Growing religious interest in environmentally friendly ethics and practices suggests that religions are beginning to use some of their assets to advance this teaching role.

Since the mid 1980s, the Dalai Lama has made environmental protection the theme of a number of them--including several speeches at the Earth Summit in 1992--and environmental protection is one of the five points of his peace plan for Tibet. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, symbolic leader of the 250,000,000-member Orthodox Church, has led in bringing people together to study water-related environmental issues. Pope John Paul II issued major environmental proclamations in 1990 and 2001, and a joint statement with Patriarch Bartholomew in June, 2002.

Patriarch Bartholomew, in particular, has effectively leveraged moral authority and church resources for environmental and social ends. Elected by the Holy Synod in 1992, he has made environmental awareness and ecumenical dialogue an important pursuit of his patriarchate. In addition to regular environmental statements, he established Religion, Science and the Environment (RSE) in 1994, an organization that has invited religious and political leaders, scientists, journalists, and theologians for symposia and training. In the process, he has raised the profile of environmental issues in the Aegean, Black, and Adriatic seas as well as down the Danube River.

Perhaps the most influential of the RSE initiatives have been the biennial shipboard symposia hosted by the Patriarch that focus on water-related environmental issues. The 2002 Adriatic Sea symposium included a special consultant to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the former head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the head of the UN Development Programme, two Roman Catholic cardinals, the Primate of the Church of Sweden, imams from Egypt and Syria, a sheikh from Albania, the grand imam of Bosnia Herzegovina, several ambassadors, heads of environmental and development-oriented nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the president of the UN Foundation, and about 40 journalists. Sharing meals and living quarters, lectures, and field trips, these high-profile participants and other attendees learn and network with each other, to impressive effect. The Adriatic symposium ended in Venice with the Ecumenical Patriarch and Pope John Paul II signing a joint declaration on environmental protection.

The gatherings focus on bodies of water in trouble, such as the Black Sea, now the most-degraded marine area in Europe. Described as "catastrophic," damage to the sea in the past three decades has resulted from coastal development, invasion of exotic species, damming of rivers feeding the sea, and the growing burden of fertilizer runoff and other pollutants. The 1997 symposium visited ports in six nations, sponsored field trips to degraded areas, and offered more than 30 lectures. Beyond building relationships among scientists and religious leaders and raising public awareness through the hundreds of news reports generated by participating journalists, the trip inspired concrete initiatives on behalf of the environment. It gave rise to the Halki Ecological Institute, a two-week-long program in 1999 to introduce Orthodox priests, seminary students, and journalists to the environmental ills of the Black Sea. The World Bank increased funding for a Black Sea program, one of its few grant (as distinguished from loan) initiatives, largely because a bank vice president was at the 1997 symposium. A religion-based environmental education and awareness program for the Black Sea region, sponsored by UNEP and the World Council of Churches, is being planned, again inspired by the Black Sea symposium.

Similar fruits are being reaped from the 1999 symposium on the Danube River. Participants testify to the role of this gathering in creating a sense of connection among the people of the river's nine host countries, even in the face of the ongoing Yugoslav war. "Divided peoples felt united by the river," explains Philip Weller, then a World Wildlife Federation program director of the Danube Carpathian project and symposium participant. "The symposium helped people to feel connected to nature." This emotional connection was possible because of the great interest generated by the Ecumenical Patriarch's participation. His leadership is a prime example of how the moral authority of religion might be focused on building a sustainable world.

Another example of religious activism draws on the moral authority of Buddhist teachings, as well as ritual, as means of influence. In Thailand, "environmental monks" are gaining fame for their advocacy of conservation and social justice within a Buddhist framework. These monks have weighed in on behalf of mangroves and birds and against shrimp fanning as well as dam and pipeline construction, among other issues. Their best-known activities center on preserving forested areas, a critical issue in Thailand. Whereas nearly three-quarters of the country was covered by forests in 1938, just 15% remains forested today, the result of a national development strategy built around the export of primary products. These monks have proved effective at the local level in preserving forest and other resources, even though they account for less than two percent of Buddhist monks in Thailand.

Environmentalist monks act from multiple motivations. Many see environmental destruction as the cause of great suffering for humans and animals alike and feel bound, as Buddhists, to address it. Prhaku Pitak, a leader among environmentalist monks, for example, was affected by the pain of hunted animals--in particular, a monkey caught in a trap--that he witnessed as a boy. Many also see a need to raise the level of environmental awareness of Thai society. At a more-practical level, some monks view environmental activism as a way to reinvigorate Thai Buddhism, which lost its influence decades ago when the Thai government took over temple schools and, more recently, when materialism further eroded spiritual values' importance.

One example of the monks' success comes from the village of Giew Muang, where Pitak helped to breathe life into an ineffective local forest conservation movement in 1991. The effort focused on a forest used by 10 surrounding villages that had been degraded and denuded by decades of exploitation. Through slide shows, environmental education programs, and agricultural projects, Pitak taught villagers the importance of forest conservation, finding ways to make his case in a Buddhist framework. He dubbed the Buddha "the first environmentalist" because the Buddha's life was closely integrated with forests. Pitak stressed the interrelatedness of trees, water supply, and food production, capitalizing on the Buddhist teaching of "dependent origination," the interdependence of all things.

Perhaps his most-creative integration of forest conservation with spirituality was his use of religious rituals to support the conservation efforts. Because many of the villagers were animists as well as Buddhists, Pitak first followed their suggestion to enlist a village elder in asking the village's guardian spirit to bless the conservation effort. A shrine was built to the spirit and offerings were made, involving every household there. Then, Pitak turned to Buddhist rituals. Joined by 10 other monks and surrounded by the villagers, he "ordained" the largest tree in the forest, wrapping a saffron robe around it and following most of the rite used in a normal ordination ceremony. No villager actually viewed the tree as a monk, of course, but as a result of this symbolic act, the conservation effort was accepted by the entire village as imbued with sacred meaning instead of being relegated to the sidelines as merely a civic activity. Tree ordination illustrates the power of ritual to infuse meaning into otherwise abstract efforts. Villagers were united in seeing the trees not just as resources, but as part of a larger ecological and mystical reality.

Pitak's success at Giew Muang stems in part from the prestige he enjoys as a monk. Some 90% of Thais are Buddhists, and most hold monks in high regard. His moral authority was also useful in gaining allies for his work. Pitak knew that monks alone would not save the forests of Thailand, so he reached out to the broader society to enhance the effectiveness of his activities, inviting local government officials, journalists, and NGO workers to the ordination ceremony, in addition to his religious supervisors. The publicity and alliance-building value of this inclusive strategy helped Pitak broaden the base of support for his efforts, as he and other environmentalist monks work with environmental NGOs.

Another local case, the effort to clean up the Ganges River in India, illustrates the importance that worldviews play in setting attitudes toward the environment, and the hard work and respect needed when dealing with widely divergent religious and secular worldviews. The Ganges, also known as the Ganga, is one of the planet's major rivers, running for more than 1,500 miles from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. It is one of the most-polluted as well, primarily from sewage, but also from animal carcasses, human corpses, and soap and other pollutants from bathers. Scientists measure fecal coliform levels at thousands of times above what is permissible, and levels of oxygen in the water are similarly unhealthy. Renewal efforts have centered primarily on the government-sponsored Ganga Action Plan (GAP), started in 1985 with the goal of cleaning up the river by 1993. Several Western-style sewage plants were built along the banks, but they were poorly designed and maintained, prone to shut down during the frequent power outages. The GAP has been a colossal failure, and many argue that the river is more polluted now than it was in 1985.

There is another view of the river that parallels the scientific one. Hindus revere the Ganga as a goddess, a sacred river whose waters are, by definition, pure. Believers flock to it to bathe, in the conviction that the water will cleanse them and remove their sins. Indeed, along the four-mile stretch at Varanasi, one of India's most-sacred cities, about 60,000 pilgrims take a "holy dip" each day. In addition, many Hindus long to have their cremated remains disposed of in the Ganga to release them from the ongoing cycle of suffering that governs life in the material world. To Hindus, the river is much more than a conduit for Himalayan snowmelt or the lifeline for a 3,000-year-old civilization. It is Mother Ganga, the source of eternal life.

The divergent Hindu view of the river is complemented by an equally divergent perspective on the cause of the river's abuse. Many Hindu priests see Ganga pollution not as the product of a faulty sewage policy, but as a consequence of moral decay. In the Hindu cosmology of cyclical history, the current era is the Kali Yuga, the recurring epoch in which degeneracy runs rampant. Money and power have corrupted society, say the priests, and much of the activity on the river is driven by money--from industrial plants that abuse the river to the government sewage plants that have failed to clean it up.

The difference in Hindu and secular perspectives on the river could not be more stark. As one researcher puts it, whereas scientists, government, and NGOs measure how polluted the Ganga has become, religious people ponder "how Ganga herself might help reset the degenerate moral and cosmic order." To many Hindus, it is a grave insult to describe Mother Ganga as polluted. They do not deny that foul material has been dumped in it, nor do they dispute the scientific reality of high levels of fecal coliform. Nevertheless, for many Hindus, these are mundane issues with no relevance to the Ganga's spiritual essence. Indeed, Mother Ganga's essential purity leaves some Hindus unmoved by the calls for a cleanup, since it would make no difference to the river's essential identity. Others, however, see cleanup as a way of respecting and honoring Mother Ganga. In any case, these sensitivities complicate religious involvement in ending abuse of the Ganga.

Yet, such engagement is possible, as evidenced by the activities of V.B. Mishra, a hydrologist and professor of civil engineering who has been working for more than two decades to rid the river of contaminants. He is also the mahant, or head priest, of the Sankat Mochan Temple in Varanasi. With his two professional hats, Mishra embodies the two worldviews, and he finds both necessary for a complete understanding of the river. "Science and technology are one bank of the river," he explains, "and faith is the other.... Both are needed to contain the river and ensure its survival." With only one bank, he says, the river would spill away and disappear.

Mishra has brought his integrated perspective to his activism, although he is careful about which hat is given greater prominence at any particular moment. In 1984, he founded the secular Sankat Mochan Foundation to launch a Clean Ganga Campaign, intended to rid it of contaminants. From the beginning, the group had religious adherents, perhaps attracted by the comfort of working with a man who, like themselves, takes a holy dip in the river each day. His group's efforts prompted the government to launch the GAP in 1985. (The foundation later opposed the government efforts, though, because they used capital-intensive Western technologies that proved inadequate for India.)More recently, it has worked to bring alternative sewage technology to the river--technology that will be more reliable than the high-tech, but fragile, projects built by the GAP.

Today, the Clean Ganga Campaign is careful to respect the distinction between physical cleanliness and spiritual purity. It maintains respect for religious belief in Ganga's purification power even as it promotes measures to reduce the material waste from the river. By carefully making the distinction between cleanness and purity, the campaign earns the respect of both sides, and helps create a collaboration between Hinduism and science.

Gary Gardner, director of research, Worldwatch Institute, Washington, D.C., is the author of Invoking the Spirit: Religion and Spirituality in the Quest for a Sustainable World.

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