Religion in Conservation and Management: A Durkheimian View

\}SRNC 6.4 (2012) 398-420] JSRNC (print) ISSN 1749-4907doi: 10.1558/jsmc.v6i4.398 JSRNC (online) ISSN 1749-4915

Religion in Conservation and Management:A Durkheimian View

E.N. Anderson

Department of Anthropology,University of California, Riverside,

1334 Watkins Hall, Riverside, CA 92521, [email protected]

Abstract

Many traditional societies use religion as the main vehicle for teaching andsanctioning environmental management. They construct the principles forsustainable (or ideally sustainable) use as ethical rules given by the gods orspirits at the dawn of time. Other societies do not do this; some use secularmorality, while others simply have no sustainability rules at all. Modemsocieties with cultural roots in the Jewish and Christian traditions oftentake the passage in Genesis 1 about 'dominion' over nature as a charter oreven a directive to destroy natural environments and species. It is worthinquiring how the successful societies manage religion. Durkheim (1995[1912]) argued that religion is used by societies to encode morality andmotivate people emotionally to follow that morality. Cross-cultural andcross-religion studies, some cited herein, show that this very often includesmorality relating to conser\'ation or resource management. Can we usetheir principles to save the planet today?

Keywords

Religion and environment, Emile Durkheim, religion and nature, anthro-pology of religion, sociology of religion

Religion: A Durkheimian View

Emile Durkheim (1995 [1912]) pointed out long ago that religions can beexplained only as representations of the community. In his now-famousdefinition, Durkheim wrote, 'A religion is a unified system of beließ andpractices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and

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forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral communitycalled a Church, [and] all those who adhere to them' (Durkheim 1995 [1912]:44, italics in original). For Durkheim, religions reproduce communitystructure, hold it together, and get people emotionally involved in theircommurüties. They serve to make their communities seem given andordained by the gods: the community is a sacred entity. Religion is usedto construct communities and enlarge them. Durkheim showed thatreligion works by harnessing individual emotionality in the service ofconstructing and maintaining community. Thus, religion becomes thegreat carrier for ethical and moral teachings—the rules of the commu-rüty. God, or the pantheon, is the collective projection of the community,and thus the community's laws are seen as God-given.

Religion can be analyzed as having five functions:1. Constructing community: defining, bounding, bonding.2. Constructing solidarity: involving people personally and emotion-

ally in the community, by generating, organizing, and synchroniz-ing emotions.

3. Constructing care: engaging individual emotionality in workingfor others and for the common welfare.

4. Constructing responsibility: providing priorities, cognitive predis-positions, empowerment, senses of duty, and loyalty.

5. Constructing rules: the actual specifics of prescripfion and pro-scription, obligation and taboo.

All the above require marshaling, engaging, and socializing emotions.Durkheim spoke of emotional 'effervescence' associated with grandreligious rituals. Stirring up emotions is necessarily done in large partthrough arts and ceremorües. A ceremony often seems like an enor-mously complex version of the same process that migrant sparrows gothrough when they arrive on wintering grounds: singing to each other toorganize winter flocks. Sparrows have a simple job: using music tocommunicate intense sociable moods. Humans sometimes need littlemore, but usually they need a far more intricate institution.

Religion thus engages people at a deep and emotional level, bondingthem together. Durkheim emphasized the wild and frantic side of reli-gious emotionality, contrasting emotion to what he considered to begood French rationality. However, actually, the commonest and mostvisible emotions associated with religion are calm, peace, solace, awe,reverence, mercy, rest, and other quiet states. These often serve as 'sidebenefits' (Olson 1965) that compensate people for the self-sacrifice thatrebgions demand. Religions may promise 'pie in the sky by and by whenyou die' (as the old song says) but they also frequently deliver peace ofmind here and now, and this is often their real appeal. Religion thus calls

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up and socially engages intense, deep, personal emotions—indeed, one'swhole being, especially the positive-affective side of it. This is whatbinds communities together and motivates the members to do good.Some have even defined religion in terms of emotions: awe, reverence,and spirituality (Lowie 1948 [1924]). However, this is inadequate (asLowie 1948 [1924] pointed out); there are vast and complex systems ofbelief to describe and understand, ceremonies to study, and philosophiesto interpret

The present article refers to religion the social construct, not religion astruth or falsehood and, in this sense, does not depend on what the Godor Gods may be.

The 'supematurals', so often used to define religion, are epiphenome-nal. Humans naturally infer agency and will when they see any cause-effect link attribute person-like qualities to anything active in their lives,a point made by scholars of religion from the ancient Greeks to today(see, for example, Atran 2002; Tylor 1871). Even in modem secularAmerica, 79% of people scold their computers and 73% swear at them(Waytz et al. 2010). At the same time, many thir\k that computers and theInternet will save the world—a new Christ. Gods and spirits are similar:agentive projections of the community, both human and transhuman(Durkheim 1995 [1912]). Self-conscious atheists and agnostics may havesimilar beliefs. Stephen Hawking admits that his unifying 'Theory ofEverything' (or 'M-theory') is really the same as the deist concept ofGod.̂ It is Lucretius's concept of God in De Rerum Natura; it is also closeto the Wakan Tanka of the Lakota (Pierotti 2011), the power of Kwa-ootzamong the Nuu-chah-nulth (Atleo 2004), and many other Indigenousconcepts. Moreover, supernatural entities are not confined to religion.The human mind seems programmed to infer or invent beings that seemto explain observed phenomena, or to mediate between cause and effect.The atheist Richard Dawkins, for instance, claimed to deny all super-natural beings, but invented a purely imaginary concept, the 'même', toexplain how information and, ultimately, a belief system is reproduced(Dawkins 1976, 2006). Ironically, mêmes are as imaginary and improb-able as any ghosts, elves, or kelpies. The concept relies on a mystical andunquestioning 'just so' acceptance that is not unlike tht explanatoryframework for supernatural beings. Most economists, following AdamSmith (1776), speak of the 'invisible hand' of the market, usually withouteven realizing that Smith was ironically using a common term for God!Many other constructs of theory are equally phantasmic. Scott Atranpoints out that American children often believe in Santa Claus and the

1. See his statements in his interview with Time, 10 November 2010: 8.



Tooth Fairy without these being considered part of 'religion' (Atran2002). In fact, belief in superna turáis seems as common outside of whatmany consider 'religion' as within it.

Moreover, many traditional societies venerate or worship real things:coyotes, ravens, mountains, waterfalls, the sky, and so on. To these theyattribute great spiritual and creative powers, but they think these arequite natural, not 'supernatural'. These societies have nothing 'secular'in the sense of being without spiritual or reverential components. Sticksand pebbles have some tiny bit of spirituality. This belief in near-univer-sal spirit agency has long been termed 'animism' (Tylor 1871), a termincreasingly used by scholars to describe such perception (see, e.g.,Abram 1996; Bird-David 1999; Harvey 2006; B. Taylor 2010; Willerslev2007). These societies may not always be assuming agency improperly;animals do have agency, in the sense that they can act and, to someextent, plan their actions to have particular effects. Spirits are generallyassumed to have more cognitive and planning ability, but not always;often the spirit is simply the animating force of the animal or even thequiet growth of a plant.

Traditional cultures may make a distinction between 'the sacred' andthe rest of life, as Durkheim (1995 [1912]) maintained, but many societiesdo not make hard and fast distinctions between religion and science orbetween supematurals and ordinary beings. Under these circumstances,it is not surprising that a great deal of hard-headed pragmatic andempirical knowledge gets merged into spiritual discourses. Conserva-tion, which we of the modem scientific world see as a scientific matter, isa religious issue in most of the world. Disappearance of heavily huntedgame, for example, is conceived in modem biology as a result of over-himting that causes a steadily shrinking breeding pool of game animals;the Northwest Coast peoples see it as a result of overhunting also, butthe direct cause is considered to be that the spirits take offense atdisrespectful behavior.

Conservation

Conservation is here defined as foregoing immediate advantage in orderto have more later, or more for others—in other words, sacrificing short-term and narrow interests for long-term, more wide-flung interests. EricSmith and Mark Wishnie (2000) defined conservation as practices thatmaintain a resource that is being used, and that are designed to maintainit—either for sustainable use or preservation. It involves some degree ofself-sacrifice. All societies need to require self-sacrifice, most obviouslyin defensive war. A society of rationally self-interested individuals



would be immediately conquered by neighbors who had more solidarity(Bowles and Gintis 2011). Societies also demand self-sacrifice in first-responder efforts and in healing, feeding the needy, and so on. All agri-cultural and herding societies have to conserve at least their seed andbreed stock; this was an early form of conservation (Alvard and Kuznar2001).

Traditional societies range widely in the degree to which they con-serve. Thoughtful criticisms of indigenous conservatiorüsm have comefrom several observers (summarized in Hames 2007 and Kay andSimmons 2002). Raymond Hames, in particular, doubts whether small-scale societies ever conserve anything. This is clearly too extreme, butHames reports data on dozens of societies around the world that do notmanage for the long term. The idea of the 'noble savage in harmony withnature' has long been abandoned in favor of a view of traditional peopleas very much like the rest of us: sometimes careless, sometimes deliber-ately careful and responsible. Stephen Beckerman et al. (2002) haveshown that societies which do not have a concept of conserving tend tohave very low population densities and live in quite diverse and produc-tive environments. In such cases there is no particular advantage toconserving. In most of these places, people simply could not deplete theresources. In others, if they did they would starve to death so fast thatthe resource base would recover rapidly.

Societies that are highly nomadic can merely move away from prob-lems. They can then keep assessing the old territories for game recoveryand move back when it recovers. This is a form of management but nottrue conservation. Conversely, more technologically complex societiesliving at higher density, especially in harsh environments, had toconserve more and better. Many Native American groups, such as theNorthwest Coast and Maya peoples, have been in their current habitatsat high population densities for thousands of years and are technologi-cally sophisticated enough to wipe out their environments—as is provedby the fact that they have occasionally done so. Indeed, the Mayacollapse of 800-900 CE was probably due in part to envirorunentalovershoot (Diamond 2005).̂

A critical problem for conservationists is enforcement. First, mostindividuals have to be responsible enough to self-police, because stop-ping everyone in an entire society from breaking conservation lawswould be impossible. Second, society has to be able to unite in stoppingthe inevitable few scofflaws.

2. Diamond's analysis was only partially refuted by articles in McAnany andYoffee 2010.



Another difficult situation for nonreligious conservation has to dowith emergencies. When a resource is stretched thin, and an emergencymakes that resource suddenly more valuable (or even desperatelyneeded), the temptation to overdraw it is hard to resist.

On the other hand, religious conservation functions to prevent stretch-ing the resource too thin in the first place, and can function to save alittle of it even in emergency situations.

In traditional societies, religion is the obvious and almost the onlychannel for doing things of this sort—for cases in which unplanned orimregulated challenges suddenly appear. Law enforcement is oftensporadic. Individual freedom is respected. Chiefs may have real power,but not enough to stop poachers. Religion has the great advantage ofteaching high ideals and values on the one hand, and threatening divineretribution (the anger matters less than the harm) on the other. This iswhere many traditional societies have an advantage over modem indus-trial ones when it comes to establishing and enforcing conservationistmores.

Global Case Studies

Mixed resource conservafion success characterizes many societies,ranging from intensive hunter-gatherer groups to intensive traditionalagriculturalists, ancient chiefdoms, and agrarian civilizafions.

Many, possibly most, traditional societies do not see community aslimited to humans. They see the community as including local animals,trees, mountains, and other beings (Callicott 1994; Hallowell 1955). Theirreligions construct a more-than-human communion. Moral considera-tions extend to 'other-than-human persons', including them in the classof Kantian subjects—^beings for whom one has to be responsible and totreat as ends (Anderson 1996; Tucker and Grim 1994; Waldau and Patton2007). This extension sharply separates West from East in religiousdoctrines. The Abrahamic religions are often seen by many of their prac-titioners as well as outsiders as privileging humanity alone. By contrast,many religions originating in East and South Asia treat at least somenonhumans as ends in themselves. In India, Hindu, Jain, and Buddhistreverence for life continued to be quite general until very recently, and isstill often a factor in saving trees and wildlife (Chappie 2002; Chappieand Tucker 2000; Tucker and Williams 1997).

Belief in sacred groves exists throughout East and South Asia (Ander-son 2009) and once was universal also in Europe and much of Africa. Itis clearly a conservafionist belief, in spite of many less-than-perfect cases.Andrew Vayda (2009) has noted that some sacred groves are far from



communities and so not of much use, so protecting them was cheap ortrivial. But most Asian sacred groves are directly adjacent to settlements.Many are integrated into a wider overall forest planning strategy, asamong the Akha (Wang 2007, 2008) and Karen (Pinkaew 2001) ofnorthern Southeast Asia. These sacred groves are not inviolate. Theysupply timber, firewood, fruit, shade, leaves, fodder for animals, andcountless other amenities. They are working forests but they areprotected from wanton cutting or burning or other destruction. They areusually in excellent shape with high biodiversity. Buddhists draw ontheir religion to save trees in modem Thailand and elsewhere(Darlington 1998).

In China, saving sacred groves is part of the folk landscape science offengshui. Traditional/en^s/iuz is a set of pragmatic beliefs explained bywhat we Westerners would call supernatural causes (Anderson 1996).The modem fengshui has become a more 'magical' practice with lessobvious practical function and more material based on matters of beliefor assertion. Notable was a belief that old trees and groves had to bepreserved because they have powerful indwelling spirits that can greatlyhelp their protectors or harm their destroyers. Thanks to this belief,every traditional village and temple had large groves protecting theuphill side and often extending down along the edges of the community.Huge old trees were always protected. Conservationist attitudes, includ-ing the beliefs basic to fengshui, go back to ancient times (for example,Liu 2010; Mencius 1971). The idea of harmony (heping and variants ofthat word) between Heaven, Earth, and Humanity has been basic toChinese cosmology and philosophy for at least 2500 years and leads to awhole philosophy of plarming and working with nature, includingurban planning, agriculture, forestry, and similar areas of enterprise(Girardot, Miller, and Liu 2001; Menzies 1994; Tucker and Berthrong1998). In general, Chinese religion and philosophy separate religion fromsecular domains, and spirituality from magic and from natural knowl-edge, but with weak and porous boundaries. Yet the Chinese conservedvillage groves and not remote forests; they protected some animals, notothers (Elvin 2004; Marks 1998). They had to manage water and soil wellin rice agroecosystems (Anderson 1988) because survival depended onthis, but they did not always manage well in rainfall-fed uplandagriculture.

The Chinese of Hong Kong (Anderson 2007) avoided undercuttingslopes and otherwise doing damage to land and landscape because theybelieved dragons would punish such activity. Slope failure and land-slides due to careless construction were explained as the reaction of thedragon to injury. The Chinese regarded dragons as perfectly real;


Anderson ReUgion in Conservation and Management 405

fisherfolk believed sturgeons to be one t)^e of dragon. In general, whatwould be called supernatural beings in English are distinguished fromother beings by being invisible and intangible, and by being worshipedwith incense and sacrifices. This generally makes a clear distinction, butsturgeons and sawfish, when caught, are offered up in the temple andtreated as sacred objects—though they are not really worshiped. Thusthe Chinese do not make the same separations of supernatural andnatural, or of sacred and secular, as does the modem Western world.

The development of Chinese landscape management involves a longhistory of elites, local resource users, and other persons with complexagendas, as well as wider cosmological beliefs. All this causes complex-ity, but in general, when China has managed resources well, there hasbeen a religious or cosmological reason for it; without that, resourcestend to be heavily exploited, declining over time.

Among traditional smaller-scale societies, the Yucatec Maya ofQuintana Roo are notable for self-conscious conservafion managementthat stresses sustainability rather than preservation. They use the entirelandscape, but have strict rules about long-term management of forestsand fields. There are in theory equally strict guidelines about gameanimals, but too many people ignore the latter, leading to overhuntingespecially in communities that have faced some breakdown in traditionsdue to outside pressure.

Belief in spiritual power is still strong. The Maya regard highly trees ofthe genus Bunchosia as siipche', 'Deer God trees', at least partly because oftheir value in healing skin conditions; this healing value is due toalkaloids isolated by the Swiss chemist Anita Ankli (2000). The Mayamaintain high respect for the guardian spirits of field and forest, arecareful to ask their permission before clearing forest for agriculture, andthank them for harvests and for safety in the field. This has carried overfrom ancient Maya religion into both Catholic and Protestant Christian-ity (Anderson 2005; Anderson and Medina Tzuc 2005; also Anderson1996, 2010). Catholic Maya hold ceremonies that still name and reverethe spirit beings. Protestant Maya are more apt to thank God as solePower, but the actual ceremonies are often the same.

The Yucatec Maya language uses the same word, chaak, for actualstorms and for the storm gods; the same word, iik', for ordinary windsand disembodied spirit forces; and the same word, yum, for gods and forhuman lords (though this latter is now rather an obsolete concept).Maize retains its religious quality as a sacred food.

North American Native peoples have various forms of a rather similarand widely shared comprehensive conservation ethic (Pieroth 2011).They are theoretically prevented by religious beliefs from overhunting



game. There are no rigid game laws; people are free to take what theyneed. But if they take more than they need, or hunt or kill wantonly, orwaste game or fish, the spirits of the arümals will punish them—at firstby withholding further game and if that fails by actually killing thehunter. The punishment of withholding further game is explicitly justi-fied by highly circumstantial stories describing people or communitiesthat wasted game and were punished by having no more. This is clearlya reference to overhunting; biologists would say the cause was depletionof animal populations, but the Native people disagree and say it wasbecause the animals were not treated with respect (see Atleo 2004;Nadasdy 2004) and their spirits therefore punished the hunters. Over-hunting, waste, and poor treatment of game are marks of disrespect(Atieo 2004).

For Native peoples, this concept of 'respect' is complex, involvingmore than the English word (see, e.g., Atieo 2004; Pierotti 2011). Animalsare part of one's own society. Many groups believe they are descendedfrom or otherwise closely related to certain arümals. Also, of course, thefull force of belief in gods, spirits, and cosmic laws is involved. Theanimal powers created the world and all in it, and they made it a highlymoralized cosmos. Respect, then, is not just the respect we give to ashade tree. It is more like the respect that devout, old-fashioned Chris-tians give to their local church and its Communion chalice—a respectthat mixes love for one's community and social group with reverence forDivine blessings.

Northwest Coast groups do not see spirits as less real than materialbeings, and they see all living things as having spirits. Often these beingscan reincarnate, frequently changing species in the process; humansoften reincarnate as wolves, whales, or other powerful animals. Theyalso see plants as persons deserving of consideration (Turner 2005).

One would thus expect to find conservation being practiced in placeswhere there is a real threat of wiping out the whole community throughselfish overuse of resources. Such is exactly the theme of countlessstories in Native American society. In these cases, the community willnaturally come down on the individual over-hunter and stop him fromsuch mischief.

In many of these cases, we have to return to rational but collectiverather than individual self-interest to explain exactly why some thingsstayed sacred. Wildlife and forests in India, as well as cows (Harris1966), were too useful to ignore, and an ideology of nonviolence gotestablished early and became self-reinforcing because it stayed useful.Groves near villages are obviously useful but also obviously easy tooveruse. Springs, good farmland, and concentrated fish resources are


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other examples of goods by which people can rapidly see the effects ofbad use and thus enforce group welfare against individuals who poachor overuse. Resources like game animals are less successfully saved:there is less imperative need for them and it is easier for those individu-als who are least deterred by morality to hide in the woods and poach atwill. It is in such cases that the need to develop individual conscience,including the motivation to intervene, is particularly necessary.

The Western World: Problems for Traditions

The current devastafion of the environment through 'moderrüzation'and 'development' also has deep religious roots, showing that religioncan work against the environment as well as for it. Much of Europeanreligion and philosophy turned against nature in the few centuries justbefore and just after the dawn of the Common Era. This was caused by aparticularly sour anti-world, anfi-fiesh, anti-nature view that crystallizedfrom neo-Platonism and ancient Near Eastern religions, especiallyIranian dualism (Coates 1998; Glacken 1967). These, going back to Platoand Zoroaster, if not earlier, held that the realm of ideas and spirit isgood and pure, whereas the realm of fiesh and nature is impure and bad.In Zoroastrianism a righteous man is the purest fieshly thing, with dogscoming in second; women are far behind (Boyce 1979).

An early expression of this anti-nature view occurs in the passageabout humanity being given 'dominion' over nature, in Genesis 1.26-28.This may be from Judea's origin myth and probably was introduced bypriests in or after the Babylorüan capfivity. The older and much moreprevalent tradition in the New Testament is that found in Genesis 2,Israel's own origin myth, in which Adam is put into the Garden of Eden'to dress and keep it' (Genesis 2.15) and forbidden to do what he wantswith it. He is, for example, not allowed to eat certain fruit. He and Eveare stewards and gardeners in the Lord's domain, not independentrulers.

A stunning insight into the stewardship concept was provided byformer sheep farmer Phillip Keller in A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 (1970).This book spells out the knowledge of sheep ecology that lies behind thepsalm that begins, 'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want'. The fewlines of the psalm call up such a detailed picture of caring for sheep thatit takes a whole book to explain it to a modem reader. The ancient Israel-ites were a sheepherding people and could appreciate the full richness ofthis poem. There are countless other passages in the Bible that arecharters for creation care, but modem readers rarely understand theirfull metaphoric significance.



Jewish ecological ideology has followed from this stewardship ideal(Tirosh-Samuelson 2002) and Islam follows it too (Foltz 2006; Foltz,Denny, and Baharuddin 2003), though practice in the Jewish and Muslimworld of the Middle East has sometimes fallen as it currently does wellshort of ideology. In fact, given the massive deforestation these culturesprecipitated long before the current period, perhaps the implication ofthe modifier 'currently' and its use here should be reconsidered.Although much Christian ideology and practice has followed the stew-ardship charge (Hessel and Reuther 2000; see also www.earthministry.org), many churches have interpreted 'dominion' in a more anti-environ-mental sense. The 'dominion' attitude, often in extreme forms, hasbecome more common in recent centuries. The anti-nature philosophy ofthe neo-Platonic and Dualist world was foreign to early Christianity andJudaism but became more and more influential in the later RomanEmpire and on through the Middle Ages. Those were the traditions thatseparated humans sharply from animals and downgraded or abolishedthe human-animal gods; Pan became the Devil. The high value ondestroying nature has propagated even more in communism, fascism,and other 'atheist' modern ideological systems than in religion.

There was a reaction against these philosophies in the Middle Ageswhich has led to a widely circulated story in the environmentalistliterature to the effect that the Middle Ages were a period of innocentlove of nature (Merchant 1996). The truth is more interesting. The Celticand Germanic societies of north and west Europe were developingmature states, and they imported their traditional pro-nature views intoEuropean civilization. The Celtic influence in particular was profound.Also, medieval environmentalism involved a major revalorization ofGreek and Roman nature writings from very early times, especiallythrough the works of Ovid. Ovid had retold in the early Roman Empiremany of the old conservation teaching stories of the ancient Greeks. Hemay have almost single-handedly saved the whole idea of conservationin Mediterranean Europe during the centuries after his time. The rebirthof interest in nature was, however, basically confined to the Celtic andGermaiùc world; it did not influence the Byzantine Empire, for instance.

This medieval period of love for nature waned, and unfortunately the'scientific revolution' of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries broughtback the neo-Platonic and Christian alienation from nature. ReneDescartes followed Catholic dogma in holding that animals had nosouls, and thus taught that they were mere machines (Descartes 1999[1637]: 40-42). Some scholars argue that this was a reaction to the horrificevents of the 1300s and 1400s: the bubonic plague sieges, the constantwars, the famines (Pierotti 2011: 45-46), and the religious wars of the

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1400s through 1600s. Nature and the world seemed hostile. Others haveblamed the rise of proto-capitalism. There were other factors, includingthe reinvigoration of Roman Empire attitudes in the Renaissance (Coates1998). By far the most important cause and correlate, however, was therise of absolutist politics, in which a central government exercises verywidespread control over behavior and speech and suppresses dissent(see P. Anderson 1974). The 'dominion' and Cartesian views track thechange from feudalism to absolutism perfectly, notably in the way thatthe phrase 'dominion over nature' tracks dominion over persons. Theworld becomes a top-down hierarchy. Communities, whether human orecological, whether in religion or in secular life, are arranged in a rigidorder of control.

One result of the early battles over absolutism was Puritanism, whichled to condemnation of natural beauty and religious art. This cost theWestern world, among other things, the realization that aesthetic experi-ence is often central to religion and is a vitally important part of Durk-heimian community-building and community representation. Withoutaesthetics, encouraging the more positive religious emotions becomesmuch more difficult.

Thus, much of the modem hostility to working with nature, evenwhen it would be profitable so to do, has deep religious and ideologicalroots in Western tradifion. The ideology of 'struggling against nature' (touse the Marxist phrase) has developed from an interaction of one ratherextreme interpretation of biblical tradition with the desire for profitamong elites who often had little vested interest in maintaining systemsof landscape management. It would seem that both an unequivocal reli-gious tradition and a decision-making class dependent on maintainingecosystem function are necessary for sustainable management.

When Religion Works

Religion can give calm, peace, strength, love, and hope, and thus empow-erment and consolation. Above all, however, it can drive long-term andcommunal self-interest against short-term narrow self-interest (Anderson1996, 2010). Cultures must develop a more general sense of socialresponsibility and trade on it to maintain environmental responsibility.Both religion and standard conservafion and environmentalist ideologydo this. Even in traditional societies that see trees as people, it is hard toimagine anyone being as responsible about trees and flowers as they areabout their own children or human neighbors. Normally, people areresponsible for the environment orüy when they are socially responsiblein general.



Religion, to a much greater extent than the modem environmentalistmovement, can effectively sanction behavior. Modem environmentalistscan get people to stop littering or starting arson fires by appeals toconscience and by passing laws. However, there are always a few whodisregard morals and conscience. Here religion comes into its own,because it gives ordinary people the duty to intervene actively to stop aperson damaging the common good. Religious zeal or fear of divinevengeance empowers such people to intervene, and guilt sometimesleads the poacher to give in. In modem, secular America, however,people are often too diffident to protest when they see people breakingenvironmental laws, and when they do protest, they often are personallythreatened (with varying degrees of seriousness). Secular humanists mayhave good morals, but they have no way of enforcing them on those theyperceive as less moral. They are handicapped not only by lack of solidar-ity but by an ideology of freedom, equality, tolerance, and individual-ism; they find it difficult to unite against others, even if the others areperceived as total scoundrels.

Religion may not be the only source of moral values but it has, so far,proved to be often a good way to motivate people to act morally. It ishard to develop a conscience or enforce good behavior toward othersoutside of a religious framework. Various economic, atheistic, or nation-alistic moralities have been developed, and may serve to unite people forsome good purposes, and they often work very well, but they may beunable to bring us beyond a certain point; only time and further studieswill tell.

Religion is concerned with ultimate questions, and religious peopleunderstand themselves to be in pursuit of some ultimate good. Medita-tion on higher principles is far from universal among the faithful, but isnot uncommon, especially in small-scale traditional societies. Even inreligions that make the believers 'take on faith', the basics of the creednormally make the believers think how to apply those basics. Religiondirects many such meditators to go beyond the ordinary everyday socialworld to see clearly what is really out there in front of them. This may bedescribed as a vision quest, a Tantric experience, Buddhist enlighten-ment, recognition of the glory of the Creator in His works, or a holisticexperience of the world as made by the Rainbow Serpent or the Coyote.In any case, it gives one direct, intense experience of the landscape andnature. This is the heart of Chinese painting, for instance. The painterswere trying to see through the screen of everyday life into the great Dao,the Way of nature.

Mystical religious experience is often said to erase distinctions,give clear sight of the world, and thus eliminate invidious group



distinctions—not only within humanity but within all life. Mysticismand the so-called world religions are important because they not onlyteach unity, they can sometimes make it a real experience. Throughimmersion in them, one may realize that some people and things aresocially closer, some socially more distant. Some may be better, somemore evil. But this is not the same as making categorical distinctions onthe basis of trivial or irrelevant reasons. The bottom line is that we are allin this together.

This perception of unity does not depend on being religious, thoughreligion has often encouraged it. To imderstand better how to cultivatethe solidarity needed for a pro-environmental worldview, we have tomove into less charted territory by breaking down traditional religionand modem conservation into component parts—analysis in the literalsense (Greek for 'splitting up'). The first and most obvious of these partsis emotional involvement (Anderson 1996, 2010; Milton 2002).

People are fundamentally irrational in that they are driven byemotions and desires rather than rational calculation of self-interest(Anderson 1996,2010; M. Taylor 2006; Westen 2007). The only time thelatter is the sole determinant of choice is in the service of utterly trivialgoals, like buying the cheaper toothbrush or sack of potatoes. Besides theobvious fact that people are creatures of emotion, there is the point thatfully rational self-interest cannot work in the real world because itdemands perfect information. People are, and have to be, brilliantapproximators. A hunter a hundred thousand years ago on the Africansavanna had to find food, avoid lions, and dodge stampeding elephants,with nothing to go on but local-group wisdom; clearly, the premium wason quick action and reaction, not rational thought.

A clear example of the failure of rational interest is world fisheries.Commercial fisheries regularly succumb to overfishing (see Worm et al.2006,2009). By contrast, most traditional fisheries self-regulate, often forreligious reasons, but also from simple community awareness (seeMcCay and Acheson 1987; Ruddle and Akimichi 1984; Ruddle and Johan-nes 1983), although many do not (Foale et al. 2011). Also, many modemsport fisheries are well managed. When rational economic calculus is theonly motivation the temptation is strong to take fish now (McEvoy 1986).The future is discounted. On the other hand, when irrational factors—religion, tradition, or ftin—are involved, people will sometimesconserve. Forestry does somewhat better, because trees are more visible,countable, and ownable than fish, but here, too, strictly commercialenterprises often put themselves out of business through overcutting.Traditional societies, however, almost always maintain their forests,except in areas of extremely dense and impoverished populations.



In these successful cases, and many others, 'irrational'—^but effective—collective interest trumps rational self-interest (M. Taylor 2006). Thegroup takes care of itself. Since people can negotiate, share information,accommodate to each other's viewpoints, and draw on varied abilitiesand skills, collective self-interest can be vastly more informed, accurate,and useful than individual knowledge. This is why people are social,and why we have culture.

However, unless there is constant feedback from reality, collectiveknowledge is apt to go in the direction of wish-fulfillment and emotionalprojection. This occurs in politics and resource management. Fisherfolkand fisheries experts routinely overestimate the size and resilience of fishstocks. Foresters overestimate the resilience of forests. Farmers under-estimate soil erosion. A modem case of derüal is seen in the globalWarnung debate (Oreskes and Conway 2010). About half of Americansand Europeans recognize global warming is real and partly caused byhumans. The other half denies this, and some of this half is waxing evermore emotional and irrational about the matter. In the 1990s, when theskeptical position was still scientifically reasonable because there was farless compelling evidence, debates were less emotional than today.

The Problem with Religion

We caruiot expect religion to make people perfect. Religion may postu-late angels but it cannot make people into angels. What it can do is directpeople's attention toward particular things, give those things priority,and make people save them if it is a matter of collective welfare versusindividual selfishness. Rarely, though occasionally, religious conserva-tion can make people truly act against their own self-interest. An envi-ronmentally unfortunate example is that of Hindu worship of cobras,which leads to saving them and thus to India's having more snakebitedeaths than the rest of the world combined.

Unfortunately, religion, as a collective representation of commurùty,inevitably represents less pleasant as well as beneficent aspects ofcommurùty. It is prone to be used in the service of community hatreds.This is especially true if the community feels itself threatened and per-ceives itself in decline. The modem extremist religions share more withnationalism than with traditional religion; they are defensive institu-tions. As Marx and modem atheists like Richard Dawkins (1976,2006)argue, a great deal of the world's religious dialogue has been taken overby cynical or fanatic individuals who bend it to their own ends. Suchpeople are generally far from the teachings of their alleged faiths. We dothe world a huge disservice by calling them 'fundamentalists'.

© Equinox Publishing Ud 2012.


There are two reasons for bigotry. Eirst is the classic Marxian one:elites find it expedient to harness religion to their agendas and 'bum atthe stake' anyone who dares quesfion this arrangement. Second is a verydifferent thing, well known to Edward Gibbon (1995 [1776-88]) but littlemenfioned by Marx: the development of marginal, dispersed commimi-ties, integrated and organized by religion, and therefore extremely'enthusiasfic', to use Gibbon's term. Since nothing but religion holdsthem together, and since they are self-consciously a community setagainst Ü\e secular or heathen or herefic world, they are defensive andzealous. Naturally, the rulers and these dispersed fanatical communifiessoon find each other, and then one has anfi-environmental religion, al-Qaeda, and much in between.

Although religion should lead to privileging community interests—that is, long-term and wide-flung interests—above short-term andnarrow ones, it too often does the opposite. Short-term greed looks like'purity' and 'defending the true faith'. It is amazing how fast is the tran-sifion from zeal to hyped requests for donations. Similarly, religionshould give people strength instead of encouraging them to give up onthe world, but giving up can look a great deal like 'purity' or 'resigna-tion'. Religion should move one up the scale toward more self-controland more long-term and wide vision, but religion in this imperfect worldvery often does exactly the opposite. Religion can make bitter puls sweetand self-sacrifice honorable. Unfortunately, in some conditions, it canteach its followers to displace all discomfiture from themselves to theiropponents.

When Religion is Needed, When It Is Not

The ability of religion to use emofion to hook people into collectivemovements was borrowed by kings and emperors long ago and used todrive patriotism and eventually nationalism. People sometimesconstructed 'imagined commimifies' (B. Anderson 1991) and whippedup loyalty to them by means borrowed directly from religion. Thus,Lloyd Warner called the United States' patriofic tradifion 'civil religion'(Wamer 1953). Religion, however, calls forth all forms of social emofionsand is expressed in hjmrins, masses, and the like, whereas patriotism isabout defense, loyalty, and marfiality, and is expressed through martialmusic. It tends to involve only a small fracfion of one's emofions, usuallythe defensive ones, while religion engages a wider range, and in pracficethere are many blends and accommodations.

More recently, the techniques that religion uses to build solidarity anddrive moral agendas have been coopted by polifical and social



movements, ranging from huge ideological movements to small-scaleones like labor uruons and Alcoholics Anonymous. All these quite self-consciously borrowed techniques from religion. Another interesting caseis the Grameen Bank. Created by the economist Mohamed Yunus inBangladesh, this economic institution has become something of a massmovement, with chants, rules, and meetings that give it a religion-likequality.^ However, all these spinoffs are self-consciously less than a full-scale religion. They tend to borrow consciously religious practice with-out assuming religious doctrine; the Grameen movement, for instance,flourishes in Bangladesh within a firmly Islamic society.

Modem societies have had some stunning conservation successeswithout even using religion—just using people's consciences and sensesof public decency. The most widely visible one is the anti-litter move-ment. Until the 1950s and 1960s, people in much of America simplythrew their litter and garbage any place they wished. Anti-litter move-ments started in the 1950s, and by 1970 littering was illegal in mostplaces. It is impossible to enforce anti-litter laws, since there are so manypeople doing so many things on the land. In fact, any dark night allowsscofflaWS to carry whole truckloads of trash onto public lands and dumpthem there. Yet, a revolution in American conscience has made thisrather rare (though it remains common in some local rural areas).

One might also point to success in conserving ducks, trout, bass, andseveral other game species. In fact, with white-tail deer, there is an'overconservation' problem. Deer have become a serious pest in parts ofthe eastem and central United States, although the larger ecological issuehere is the failure to replace the role of human hunting with other top-level animal predators. Not only hunters have saved wildlife; we in thewestern hemisphere have managed to save the birds of prey and themigrant birds from total extermination, beginning with the MigratoryBird Treaty of 1907. AH this was done without benefit of religion. Appealto aesthetics and sarutation in the case of litter and to the selfish interestsof hunters in the case of ducks and deer were apparently adequate.

However, the current problems of saving forests, stopping globalwarming, conserving water, and controlling pollution are not proving sotractable. They involve major self-sacrifice by many people. It is highlydoubtful whether anything short of a major revolution of conscience willbe enough. In traditional communities, to the degree that they managefor sustainability, religion seems to be the method that is working. Inthese places, religion functions as a 'total institution' largely devoted to

3. According to B. Anderson and E.N. Anderson, who made these observationsin Bangladesh during a training course with the Grameen Bank.



building solidarity tlir'ough mutual aid and ritual bonding. However, afew modem conservation organizations, including the Audubon Societyand the Sierra Club, have succeeded without being religious or adoptingany religion and indeed—unlike the Grameen Bank—without drawingmuch on religious practice for producing unity. They are highly success-ful in sustairung themselves, attracting more members, changing withthe times, and influencing the wider society through moral suasion andpolitical campaigns. They are grassroots organizations, not creatures of'big money' like certain less highly regarded NGOs (on problematicalconservation today, see Brockington, Duff, and Igoe 2008).

There are common themes that allow these organizations to behavelike traditional religion-imbued societies. First, they construct societywith relevance to nature. They see nature as intrinsically worthwhile andvaluable in and for itself. 'Nature'—whatever that is held to be—mayennoble people, or give them refuge and respite, orbe a source of beautyand inspiration. 'Nature' thus has clear economic benefits, but that is notsufficient to tip the balance. Instead of constructing a model of people vs.nature, cultures and groups will have to work hard at constructing amodel in which that distinction is erased and humans are part of thewider world. Emotion is most certainly involved, and the emotions mostinvolved are positive ones. Both traditional, small-scale societies and theAudubon and Sierra movements purport to love and cherish naturalthings. By contrast, environmental movements that trade on fear do notfare so well. This includes the movements that focus on pollution, globalwarming, and the like. Eear makes people lash out thoughtlessly, andoften with bigotry. Eear makes people attack scapegoats instead of realproblems (see Westen 2007). Hope, on the other hand, can motivatepeople to improve and do better.

This means that an environmentally friendly worldview must advancea vision of the future as a good world (on this and what follows, see B.Taylor 2010). Religions use Heaven or the world after a Messiah orMillennium to advance this vision, but even religions work better whenthey provide images of human potential in this world. Native Americanand Aboriginal Australian religions often focus on getting youngbelievers into such positive visionary states through spiritual quests orritual initiations, and their ceremonies renew these activities.

In successful conservation, arts are often involved. The art of theAustralian Aboriginals portrays the Dreaming—the world of creationand renewal that lies behind the visible world. Chinese classical land-scape art is well known also. Many traditional cultures have elaborateand striking art that is used ceremonially to convey messages aboutnature, including conservation messages, fhe modem NGO equivalents



are the Sierra Club and Audubon calendars and similar nature art. AnselAdams's and Galen Rowell's photographs of mountain scenery demanda kind of dedication and devotion that Sunday photographers do nothave. They are correspondingly effective. Art is the way that culturestructures the communication of emotion and mood, as well as a vehiclefor carrying more concrete messages such as charts of the cosmos. Allgroups that succeed in conserving seem to find that at least some struc-tured manipulation of positive emotions through aesthetic experience isnecessary.

A Personal Note

If we want to work for the environmental cause, we will have to reformworld religions, and we will also have to use the lessons of religion todevise secular groups and movements that can build solidarit)^ givehope, and harness positive emotions and human good in the service ofcollective well-being (B. Taylor 2010). In addition to the Society for theStudy of Religion, Nature and Culture (which is not an activist or conser-vationist orgaruzation, though many involved have such a dimension totheir lives and scholarship), there is the Earth Ministry movement basedin Seattle, which has spread from a Christian base to enlist Buddhist,Muslim, and other congregations. There are also Mother Pelican, theCreation Care movement, and dozens of others. These involve not onlymainstream congregations but many evangelical and nondenomina-tional churches as well as non-Christian groups. Buddhism, Hinduism,and Jainism continue their classic positions of defending and protectingall beings and have advanced their agendas to take into account globalwarming and other current problems. Some of these use the variousmethods of religion to draw together and unite environmentalists. Theywork toward healing the splits in the movement between scientists andcommoners, deep ecologists and ordinary conservationists, or wise-useand preservation advocates. Many new nonreligious movements takeinto account the need to involve the whole connmurdty emotionally.There are several Green Campus and Green University movementsworldwide. Sustainability movements are getting more and morecommuni ty-conscious.

In 1844, Karl Marx wrote: 'Religion is the sigh of the oppressedcreature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritlessconditions. It is the opium of the people' (cited in Elster 1986: 301). Toofew realize today that opium was a soothing syrup for children inMarx's time, not a dangerous illegal drug. He went on to call the relig-ions of his time a chain hidden in flowers but holding back the working



classes. He then continued: 'Crificism has torn up the imaginary flowersfrom the chain not so much that man shall wear the unadorned, bleakchain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower'(cited in Elster 1986: 301-302). Unfortimately, Marxists did exactly theopposite: they eliminated the flowers and kept the chain. It is our job todo what Marx said he wanted. We must save the flowers and shake offthe chain.

Acknowledgments

I offer my deep grafitude to Rick Stepp and Bron Taylor for theirconsiderable editing of this manuscript.

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Religion in Conservation and Management: A Durkheimian View

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