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Sustainability Initiative. Keywords: religion, landscape, spirituality, environment, climate change, sacred landscapes, environmental history
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Though currently only partially understood, evolving interactions among Latin American communities of faith, governments, and civil societies are a key feature of the popular mobilizations and policy debates about environmental issues in the region. This edited collection describes and analyses multiple types of religious engagement with environmental concerns and conflicts seen in modern Latin American…
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El Salvador’s refusal to allow industrial gold mining within its borders sets it apart from most other Latin American countries. Since 2007, three successive presidents from opposing parties have maintained a de facto moratorium that prevents all mining firms – international and Salvadoran, public and private – from accessing El Salvador’s estimated 1.4 million ounces…
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As is evidenced by the recent papal encyclical, religious actors (including leaders, institutions, and social movements, among others) are increasingly actively engaged with both the causes and impacts of climate change. But religion also affords a diversity of social and cultural contexts within which moral and political debates about climate are framed. A robust approach…
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Island states contribute only .03 percent to global emissions, but “nineteen major Caribbean cities are in the bullseye of the climate threat” and Pacific island states such as Kiribati and Tuvalu face an existential threat from sea level rise, said Selwin Hart, Barbados’ ambassador to the Organization of American States and the United States. At…
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This paper describes incipient international and regional Latin American deliberations concerning normative frameworks for addressing environmentally-induced migration, and the role attributed to religion in these accounts. It begins by sketching the history of international normative instruments in support of refugees, highlighting Latin America’s leadership in successive efforts to advance refugee protections and to broaden inclusion…
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This working paper describes international and domestic efforts to enact legal protections for environmental migrants, with attention to Latin America, and examines why efforts to craft a comprehensive international instrument to address this phenomenon have yet to succeed. It details factors contributing to this impasse, including: the lack of an existing framework; the inherent complexity…
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On June 16, 2015, academics, journalists, scientists, government, religious and business leaders from China, the U.S., and other countries came together for the first time to discuss the environmental challenges facing China and the world—and the increasingly important role of religion and traditional cultures in finding sustainable solutions to the challenges we face. Ecological Civilization…
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How can religion help to understand and contend with the challenges of climate change? Understanding Climate Change through Religious Lifeworld, edited by David Haberman, presents a unique collection of essays that detail how the effects of human-related climate change are actively reshaping religious ideas and practices, even as religious groups and communities endeavor to bring…
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Over the past three decades, climate change has become an increasingly prominent topic on the global agenda as advocates have marshaled scientific, policy, and moral support to protect the environment. In addition to state actors and the private sector—who engage in traditional coordinated advocacy efforts for environmental protection policies—faith-inspired actors can foster significant change in…
