SOCIAL AND ETHICAL DIMENSIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION

Despite the traditional distance between the practitioners of science and the people with spiritual beliefs, there has now been a convergence of religion and environmental activism. The global environmental crisis, which is demanding our attention with ever-increasing urgency, reaches into every area of our existence: physical, social, economic, political, cultural, psychological and spiritual. Consequently, people who attempt to deal with this crisis tend to approach it through a variety of channels, including the natural and the social sciences, ethics and religion. Those for whom the search for a meaningful existence involves the integration of nature and spirit tend to seek solutions in which these different approaches are in harmony rather than in conflict (Vaillancourt and Cousineau, 1997). Environment is visualized as all of the conditions, circumstances etc. that surround and influence life on earth, including atmospheric conditions, food chains and water cycle. It is a harmonious blend of life in its infinite diversity with the non-living factors viz. climatic, edaphic and topographic. All the living beings, are in tune with the environment; their origin and evolution, and even extinctions are in perfect blend with time and dynamism of nature. The humans however are not only coming out of thi