The role of religion in conservation and degradation of forests: Examples from the Kumaun Himalaya

Lynn White Jr’s (1967) paper, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis” was significant in raising inquiry into how religious conceptions of the world define human relations and use of the natural environment. Since then, the rapidly expanding literature in ecological anthropology, and most notably the fields of spiritual ecology and environmental philosophy, have attempted to provide insights into the role that religious belief systems play in regulating natural resource use (Tucker 1997; Palmer and Finlay 2003; Taylor and Kaplan 2003).