Abstract:

As industrial civilisation presses on the limits of ecosystems, scientific conservation requires new strategies to restrain the destruction or modification of habitats and ecosystems in order to halt the decline in biodiversity. Some advocates of community-based conservation strategies propose that scientific conservation discourses and practices benefit from supplementation by ritual practices and traditional knowledge associated with place-based religious traditions. Partnerships between conservation scientists and religionists, which engage religious discourses and rituals in local communities in the care of habitats and species, represent a significant reframing of scientific conservation. Hybrid forms of conservation between science and religion manifest greater sensitivity to human ecological relationships than conventional statist conservation strategies. An example of such partnerships is the effort to conserve the endangered leatherback turtle in West Malaysia.

Author: Michael Northcott