The Contribution of Religion to Environmental Conservation in Some Selected Towns in Kogi State, Nigeria
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Religion can play a vital role in influencing attitudes, behaviour, perceptions, modes of coping and actions in response to environmental problems, but it has been largely ignored in Nigerian ecological discourses. This essay therefore, examines the contribution of Religion to Environmental Conservation in Some Selected Towns in Kogi State, the study used primary and secondary data sources and careful observations of the contemporary environmental crisis in the study area. The study adopted historic, thematic and content constructive analysis. This study observed that the nature of environmental pollution in these towns include air, land and water pollution, and the sources of pollution were traced to the unhealthy practices and unfriendly attitudes of residents including butchers, householder, traders, transporters, farmers and students towards the environment as well as vehicular and industrial emission reducing the air quality in the city. This work reveals that the unhealthy practices have negatively affected residents’ health issues, and argues that pollution in these towns have the tendency of not only affecting humankinds, but the regional and global environments. It was also observed that, despite the fact that, all religions within the study area have ethical injunctions that geared towards environmental conservation, the efforts towards conserving the environment was not felt nor taught explicitly by her leaders. Hence, to reduce environmental degradation, this study submits that environmental degradation problems in the study area and somewhere else, can be effectively address through religious stewardship, eco-justice and creation spirituality, which are the emerging environmental ethical ideologies in contemporary Christianity and other religions.
Source: UMA Journal of Religious Studies
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7220161092