Religions between them own approximately 7 per cent of the Earth’s inhabitable surface, have influence over more than half of the world’s schools, and act as the main community and spiritual centres for more than 4 billion people. They are immensely powerful in most parts of the world, with followings and influence that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and environmentalist movements could not even dream of.

Not surprisingly therefore, the World Bank, parts of the United Nations, several governments, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and other conservation groups all have begun to work with faith leaders on environmental projects.

Cultural reminder
In Mongolia, for example, the World Bank and other international organizations are sponsoring a project to translate and publish Buddhist sutras about sacred mountains into modern Mongolian. The plan is to use the texts to reconsecrate the mountains and thus remind the local people of their traditional responsibilities not to log or hunt in certain areas.

Enkhbayer, the country’s Prime Minister and an active Buddhist, says: ‘Which will be the more powerful argument? That you can’t log this mountain because the Government tells you not to or because it is holy? In my experience there is no question’.

WWF was one of the first environmental groups to work explicitly with religious leaders. HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, then its International President – who put forward the idea in 1986 – says: ‘It seemed pretty obvious. If your religion tells you (as it does in Christianity anyway) that the Creation of the world is an act of God, then it follows naturally that if you belong to the church of God then you ought to look after His Creation. I was not quite sure what the other religions believed about the creation of the world but I guessed that they had similar traditions.'

If there is one key area of agreement between all the world’s religions it is that it is important to look after the Earth

Despite considerable internal opposition, WWF took up the idea, and hosted a meeting of leaders of five major religions to talk about environmental issues. It turned out that each religion did indeed have its own conservation policy, even if most had never made it explicit before. The meeting succeeded partly because there was no attempt to get universal agreement on any particular point – no attempt to stem the diversity of theological beliefs.

Statements of commitment
Since then, WWF’s network for religions and ecology – which later became the independent Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC) charity – has grown to include 11 major faiths. Each, for the first time, has issued statements about its commitment to ecology and Creation.

Anglican Churches have transformed annual harvest festivals into lessons about conservation; Sikh leaders decided that the 300-year cycle starting in 1999 would be the Cycle of Creation (the last one was the Cycle of the Sword). Muslim leaders in Tanzania persuaded fishermen not to use explosives because it is against the Qu’.ran, succeeding where violent threats by police had failed. And Shinto groups in Japan are seeking to buy wood and paper from European churches which own large tracts of forests that they have only recently put under Forest Stewardship Council certified management.