The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) international congress recently took place in Hawaii. The IUCN is the world’s largest and most diverse environmental network with over 16,000 conservation experts in their ranks. A Rocha is the only Christian organization amongst the 1,300 member organizations.
Peter Harris, A Rocha International’s co-founder, was privileged to speak during one of the congress’s high level panels on the theme of Connections: Spirituality and Conservation. Peter’s remarks were wise, eloquent and very well received.
Peter’s message can also be found in the following article in Christianity Today:
Why Conservation Is a Gospel Issue
Article by Peter Harris in Christianity Today
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources convenes its World Conservation Congress every four years. So this year’s gathering in Honolulu, Hawaii, which continues through Saturday, September 10, is held in the shadow of the World Wildlife Fund’s 2014 report claiming that in just 40 years, over half of the world’s wildlife has been lost.
Until recently, the conservation movement has been overwhelmingly secular. But the sense here is that this is a moral and even a spiritual crisis. As Gus Speth, who helped found the Natural Resources Defence Council and was dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, told a British radio presenter in 2013:
I used to think that top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address these problems, but I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.
