Spiritual Ecology, Sacred Places, and Biodiversity Conservation

by Leslie E. Sponsel

Since the 1960s there has been growing interest in spiritual ecology, and this interest has accelerated markedly since the 1990s with an increasing number of conferences and publications. Spiritual ecology focuses on the relationships between religions and environments from the local to the global levels to address environmental crises, problems, and issues. This reflects the growing realization of numerous and diverse individuals and organizations that greener environmental world views, attitudes, and values are the most fundamental prerequisite for resolving environmental concerns, and that this in turn requires a profound rethinking of the meaning of nature and of the place of humans in it. Thus spiritual ecology operates at two levels, theoretical and practical. The latter includes religious organizations as well as individual spirituality. [Read more] ...