Sacred Texts and Environmental Ethics: Lessons in Sustainability from Ethiopia (original) (raw)
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Accidental Environmentalists The Religiosity of Church Forests in Highlands Ethiopia
In highland Ethiopia, the only remaining stands of native forest are around churches of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church. Though hailed as community-conserved areas by environmentalists, we argue that the conservation of such forest is not intentional , but rather an indirect result of the religious norms, beliefs and practices surrounding the sites. In actuality, the religiosity surrounding church forests maintains the purity of the most holy space in the center of the shrine, the tabot, a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, which ensures that the church is a legitimate and effective portal to the divine. An underlying cultural logic of purity and pollution structures the spatial organization of the site outward into a series of concentric circles of diminishing purity and shapes the social order into an elegant hierarchy. This article seeks to understand the norms, beliefs and practices of this sacred geography in its social and religious context , arguing that ignorance of or inattention to these can undermine the conservation goals that have brought these forests, along with so many other sacred natural sites, to the attention of environmentalists around the world.
Ethiopian church forests: a socio-religious conservation model under change
For centuries, the core religious values of Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church communities have ensured the protection of church forests. Despite this strong and longstanding tradition, however, communities are now facing a host of new challenges and opportunities. Our interdisciplinary research highlights ways in which the ecological status of church forests may be threatened due to new practices as well as the changing economic status of church forest communities. We find that the adaptability of these communities to changes associated with modernity might, inadvertently, be a key factor in ecological degradation. But their adaptability might also offer a window of opportunity for agents of forest conservation. Based primarily on ethnography, this article presents Ethiopian church forests as dynamic socio-religious spaces, explores the types of changes affecting the communities and their forests, and considers ways in which the church forest conservation model is evolving.
Journal of Religion & Society , 2019
Remnant Afromontane forests in northern Ethiopia are under threat from development pressures both within Ethiopia and from international interests. These biodiversity hotspots are currently protected by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC), which views the forests as sacred. The academic literature is divided on how to provide food security in this drought-prone nation. This article examines these tensions in the academic literature before turning to the eco-theology of the Ethiopian Orthodox, which both protects these forest fragments and strengthens the communitarianism of traditional Ethiopian society. A case is then made for the continued management of these forests by the EOTC.
2019
Remnant Afromontane forests in northern Ethiopia are under threat from development pressures both within Ethiopia and from international interests. These biodiversity hotspots are currently protected by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC), which views the forests as sacred. The academic literature is divided on how to provide food security in this drought-prone nation. This article examines these tensions in the academic literature before turning to the eco-theology of the Ethiopian Orthodox, which both protects these forest fragments and strengthens the communitarianism of traditional Ethiopian society. A case is then made for the continued management of these forests by the EOTC.
Ethiopian Church Forests: A Hybrid Model of Protection
Protection of forests because of their association with religious traditions is a worldwide phenomenon. These sacred forests play a key role in maintaining ecosystem services in regions affected by land system change. In the northern highlands of Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church controls the majority of the surviving native forest. However, the reasons why communities value the forests and the ways they use and manage them are not well understood. We use data and analysis from an interdisciplinary project and ethnographic research, in particular, to explain how Ethiopian church forests function. Church forests represent an unusual form of community-based protection that integrates locally controlled common property with external institutional arrangements: this hybrid system is highly effective at protecting the forest while maintaining cultural practices. Our results inform theoretical debates about models of tropical forest protection and question assumptions about church forests being the product of a nature conservation imperative.
Theological ambiguities: A challenge to a constructive ecotheology in Africa.
This paper is written following an evaluation of the church role towards ecological crisis that is happening at the Mau forest complex in Kenya. The place of the church in Kenya, and Africa is central, and the church theology still plays a normative role. Mau forest complex is a very important ecological feature in Kenya, and a major catchment area. As much as this very vital ecological feature and a major catchment area is experiencing degradation, churches in Kenya have remained aloof silent, and if anything is happening, it is not something tangible in comparison to the actions taken by the churches in Kenya towards other socio-economic and political issues in Kenya. It is within this understanding therefore that this paper is written to evaluate the reason behind this silence.
2020
Using an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach, this study investigates the ecotheological contributions of three main interlocutors from East and Southern Africa, namely Samson Gitau, Kapya Kaoma and Jesse Mugambi, all of whom are African theologians. The three theologians seek to address ecological degradation from an African ecological perspective, by drawing on African Indigenous Knowledge Systems and African Christianity and Religiosity. The contributions of the three theologians in their respective chapters enable the study to identify the systems and practices that are under-researched and not utilised even though they are ecologically sensitive systems. Owing to a number of factors, African Indigenous Wisdom Knowledge Systems have not been adequately explored. African Indigenous Wisdom is a body of knowledge systems with ecological overtones. From a theological and African religiosity perspective, Gitau, Kaoma and Mugambi highlight the need for natural theology to be adopted by the Church as an institution. Gitau stresses the importance of relations based on the African concept of God, humanity and creation. The study addresses the gap in the existing knowledge by drawing on the main interlocutors to investigate the ecological crisis and by adopting an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach. According to this approach, as applied by Gitau, Kaoma and Mugambi, the indigene's systems are not adequately explored and churches in Africa are ecologically insensitive. African churches ought to embrace Indigenous Wisdom Knowledge Systems and form an African eco-theology. The study has brought to the fore the ecological overtones of African religious belief systems and African Christianity that, together, provide the basis for Christian ecological ethics inside and outside the faith community. Gitau, Kaoma and Mugambi condemn the Church as an institution and other voices for not taking a leading role in addressing contemporary ecological issues.
This research article is about the African religious worldview in conservation of natural environmental resources using the Sengwer tribe as a case in point. The Sengwer are a hunter -gatherer tribe who inhabit the Cherang'any Hills forests in the northwestern part of Kenya. The current environmental situation in the area is worsening due to the destruction of the water catchment area, which threatens human existence in the region. Measures laid down by the government and various stakeholders to tackle environmental degradation have not yielded the expected results. This prompted research to ascertain the Sengwer religious worldview on natural resource conservation and the challenges they face in utilizing their indigenous religion to combat environmental crisis. The findings of the study established that the Sengwer religious worldview dovetails with environment conservation. The main components of the Sengwer worldview, the Supreme Being, ancestors, the universe, the community and their social system provided a framework for sustainable utilization and conservation of natural resources. The study identified the various challenges that the Sengwer face, and the measures they have taken to ensure that they can utilize their religion to tackle the environment crisis. This paper provides salient recommendations on how various stakeholders can partner with and utilizes the indigenous African religion in conservation efforts, and is expected to benefit government agencies, policy makers, and researchers in environment matters and religion.
Global Ecology and Conservation, 2021
Despite expanding interest in nature's contributions to people (NCP) studies, understanding of sacred natural sites' contributions to human society and the restoration of fragmented landscapes remains relatively limited. This study examines the diversity and extent of NCP by church forests in a fragmented tropical landscape in southern Ethiopia. We identify 339 church forests in the Gurage Zone and examine them using a combination of historical (1967) aerial photographs and recent (2017) orthophoto images, supplemented by vegetation sampling and in-depth interviews with key informants from 42 selected church communities. Church forests can be found in all agro-ecological zones and across the entire vegetation types in the Gurage socio-ecological landscape. In the last five decades, the extent of church forests has been remarkably persistent, and 67% of the forests have seen an increase in size even while surrounding state-and community-controlled forestland has been degraded over time. Interview findings suggest the church forests' persistence is in large part due to the church compound being seen as a sacred space and hence respected and protected by the community. This powerful social norm has allowed for multiple uses of the church forest to continue over time through sustained forest management. More than 15 distinct contributions of church forests to local communities were identified including material, nonmaterial, and regulating NCP categories, suggesting church forests deliver a wide range of NCP in addition to their well-established ecological and conservation value. Findings underscore the current contributions of church forests to local people in southern Ethiopia, as well as the potential for church forests to support the restoration of degraded landscapes through integration into regional landscape planning and management policies.
The observation and assessment carried out in the church exhibited the age long tradition of forest conservation around the compounds of the church, including the existence of traditional forest protection, utilization and plantation practices. These well preserved church as a museum of biodiversity. They are developed as a result of faith. Reverence for such heritage by surrounding inhabitants comes through religion; it is not the result of obligation or fear. The main causes for the preservation of church forests in Entoto St.Raguel church in their faith. The general attitude of the people in the study area about the church forest is that church compounds forests are the property of God not of individuals or other groups. God preserved them for the purpose of his people. They are strictly looked upon as sacred objects of the house of God. Since the study area is mostly populated by orthodox Christians, due to this, there is no negative attitude or constraints towards the church forests by other religious groups. All the dewellers give reverence for church forests. But, due to the presence of small number of people in the church there were not enough organized activities of new plantation of indigenous tree species programs applied by the church communities.