FIELD NOTES: The United Nations (Via Religion and Its Affiliated Agencies) to the Rescue in the Cause of Conservation?

Abstract

Environment-focused institutions aflliated with the United Nations and other non-governmental agencies have long sought to mobilize religious individuals and groups to construct environmentally sustainable societies. Often, those involved have come from the world’s academic, religious, and political intelligentsias. Two major conferences in 2016 continue the pattern, which, generally speaking, is characterized by religionists and scholars sympathetic to specilc traditions contending that, properly understood, the world’s religions promote environmental concern. Social scientilc studies regarding the role of religion in environmental behaviors question these earnest hopes. Indeed, comprehensive reviews of pertinent studies suggest that such assertions may represent a form of strategic essentialism designed to spur religious peoples to engage in something that, given their traditions’ foci, does not come naturally to them, namely, putting a priority on environmental conservation.