ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates several controversies concerning religion and human stresses on natural ecosystems and wild species, including the question of whether animism is universally protective of native biota and prevents species extinctions. Relative to the question of whether pre-modern cultures lived in balance with nature, archeological research has found that even humanities' ancestors were able to modify the structure of the plant and animal communities on a landscape scale. The emergence of animism was a cognitive change in the way humans perceived their environments. Animism attributes the goal-directedness and sentience of living animals to stones, springs, mountains, trees, and thunderstorms. A more recent wave of extinctions provides additional evidence for the environmental impacts of pre-industrial technologies. Creation myths relate how the salmon offered themselves to people for sustenance, or how Raven, the wisest of birds, brought salmon in from the sea to breed in the rivers.
