Religion employed for environmental causes

JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja warns that the barrage of campaigns to save the environment should take into consideration the values and beliefs of the people to be more effective. One being religious values.

Many pro-environment messages are lost on the public because they fail to touch values which people believe are at stake, Sarwono said on Monday.

This failure results in "ambivalent attitudes" on the part of the people coupled with numerous difficulties encountered by efforts to save the environment, he said in a keynote address launching a five-day workshop on traditional beliefs and religious approaches to environmental preservation.

Given the central role that religion plays in people's lives, religious approaches may become an effective, propelling drive in the campaign against environmental degradation caused by materialistic approaches of development, he said.

"All religions carry the same environmental messages that efforts by human beings to improve material well-being should be carried out through sustainable means."

Using religion will help Indonesia contribute more to the international environmental campaigns since all major religions of the world, as well as hundreds of traditional beliefs, have adherents here, he said.

An estimated 30 local and foreign environmentalists and journalists are taking part in the workshop, which continues today in Trawas, Mojokerto, East Java.

Prominent scholars participating include Dr. Franz Magnis Soeseno, Dr. Nurcholis Madjid and Soetjipto Wirosardjono from Indonesia and Pamela Colorado from the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network in Hawaii and Lalitha Vaidyanathan from India.

Sponsored by the Earth Wire Project environmental news network and UNESCO, the workshop aims to establish inventories of values advocated by religions and traditional beliefs concerning the preservation of nature, and analyzing and translating relevant values into popular messages to be disseminated by the media to the public.

UNESCO's chief representative to Indonesia, Jurgen Hillig, in his address to the workshop on Monday, commended various non- governmental organizations (NGOs) which have been playing pivotal roles in the environmental preservation campaign. "The NGOs have contributed mightily by mobilizing necessary emotional commitment to ensure that meaningful actions are undertaken," he said.

He pointed out that there is a need for enhanced education on global and environmental change and their impacts on natural resources. "The educational institutions will face new pressures to provide adequate training on those issues," he said.

Koesnadi Hardjasoemantri, a legal expert, said Indonesia's 1982 Environmental Management Act provides a strong legal base for the role of religion in the development of environmental awareness.

"One of the strong avenues to develop environmental awareness is religion, which teaches, among other things, how to treat the environment entrusted to man by God," he said.

The environmental act points out that the living environment is a blessing from God and its capability must be developed and sustained so that it can continue to serve as a life source and support, he said.

He suggested that future environmental campaigns involve intellectuals from the younger generations. (swe)