272 Environmental Ethics and achieve a degree of economic independence may reduce the need to overharvest wild species Working with indigenous people to secure legal title to their land may give them the means to protect the biological communities in which they live (although they not always choose to so in practice) Working to benefit people is often not just compatible with effective conservation, but necessary to its success Conservationists need to look for ‘‘win win’’ scenarios where the interests of people and nature can both be furthered, whether we are working in underdeveloped or overdeveloped nations However, in some situations, protecting biological diversity will be incompatible with meeting immediate human needs or promoting short-term human interests In such situations, hard choices will need to be made and these choices should not automatically favor people over other species, or current over future generations Extinction is forever and extinguishing other species is rarely if ever necessary to preserve human lives Our duties to future human generations arguably include a strong duty to preserve other species from extinction certain animals, and recognizes a basic kinship between humans and other beings (including the transmigration of souls from one species to another) A primary ethical concept in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism is ahimsa: nonviolence, or compassion for all life To live by this ideal, many believers become vegetarians and live materially simple lives Of course, some religions articulate views that put human beings at the center of creation, supporting a domineering attitude toward nature But such interpretations are contested Since many people base their ethical values on a religious faith, the development of religious arguments in support of conservation might be effective in motivating people to conserve biodiversity (Wirzba, 2003) In September 1986, an interfaith ceremony was held in the Basilica of St Francis, in Assisi, Italy It included ‘‘Declarations on Nature’’ by representatives of the five participating religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism For the first time in history, leaders of these faiths came together to declare that their religions mandate the conservation of nature Excerpts from the five declarations follow The Buddhist Declaration on Nature Religious Stewardship Some preindustrial cultures successfully coexisted with a rich local flora and fauna for hundreds of years, in part because their religious and ethical beliefs encouraged the thoughtful use of resources People in these societies respected wild animals and plants, even as they harvested them or borrowed their habitat for human purposes For example, the Cherokee Indians of the southeastern United States spoke special prayers to the deer that they killed, telling the deer spirit that they indeed needed the meat, that they would not waste it, and that they would bury the bones with due solemnity Traditional peoples often treated rivers, mountains and other ecosystems as sacred places to be approached with reverence and an appreciation for what they were, rather than with haste, focused on what human beings could make of them Many modern religious believers abhor the destruction of species, because they are God’s creation Within the Jewish and Christian traditions, human responsibility for protecting animal species is explicitly described in the Bible as part of a covenant with God The Book of Genesis describes the creation of the Earth’s biological diversity as a divine act, after which ‘‘God saw that it was good’’ and ‘‘blessed them.’’ In the story of Noah’s Ark, God commanded Noah to save two of all species – not just the ones human beings found useful God provided detailed instructions for building the ark – an early species rescue project – saying ‘‘Keep them alive with you,’’ and after the flood subsided, the animals were released to repopulate the Earth The prophet Mohammed, founder of Islam, continued this theme of human responsibility, saying ‘‘The world is green and beautiful and God has appointed you as His stewards over it He sees how you acquit yourselves.’’ Belief in the value of God’s creation supports a stewardship argument for preserving biodiversity: Human beings have been given responsibility for God’s creation and must preserve, not destroy, what they have been given Many other religious traditions also support the preservation of nature For example, Hinduism locates divinity in Venerable Lungrig Namgyal Rinpoche, Abbot, Gyuto Tantric University The simple underlying reason why beings other than humans need to be taken into account is that, like human beings, they too are sensitive to happiness and suffering y Many have held up usefulness to human beings as the sole criterion for the evaluation of an animal’s life On closer examination, one discovers that this mode of evaluation of another’s life and right to existence has also been largely responsible for human indifference as well as cruelty to animals We regard our survival as an undeniable right As coinhabitants of this planet, other species too have this right for survival And since human beings as well as other nonhuman sentient beings depend on the environment as the ultimate source of life and well-being, let us share the conviction that the conservation of the environment, the rectification of the imbalance caused by our negligence in the past, be implemented with courage and determination ‘‘All sentient beings, all breathing things, creatures without exception, may no evil befall them.’’ – Gradual sayings of the Buddha The Christian Declaration on Nature Father Lanfranco Serrini, Minister General, Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans) To praise the Lord for his creation is to confess that God the Father made all things visible and invisible; it is to thank him for the many gifts he bestows on all his children y By reason of its created origin, each creature according to its species and all together in the harmonious unity of the universe manifest God’s infinite truth and beauty, love and goodness, wisdom and majesty, glory and power Man’s dominion cannot be understood as license to abuse, spoil, squander, or destroy what God has made to manifest his glory That dominion cannot be anything other than a stewardship in symbiosis with all creatures y Every human act of