Faith for Ecocide Law is an inter-religious coalition gathering religious and spiritual leaders and voices to express support for an international crime of Ecocide.
Humanity is at the crossroads, and faith communities have a unique voice for the reverence for Mother Earth/the Creation, and the existential understanding of the relationship between humans and Nature. We are raising this voice in support of new rules for the protection of Nature at a global scale.
• are deeply concerned about the ongoing destruction of our home, the Earth.
• demand a global response to prevent mass damage and destruction of ecosystems: Ecocide.
• support creating legal protection for life on Earth by including Ecocide as a crime against peace under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
As humanity, we are in a position we have never been before. We are in the Anthropocene. We have an impact on the whole planetary system, and Nature is sending us warning after warning. Our collective actions are damaging to life on a global scale. Ecocide is happening every day. The climate is changing. Polar ice is melting and seas are rising. Every day, entire species are disappearing from the face of the Earth, never to return. Many of us have forgotten that we are not separate from Nature but a part of life on this planet, and that when we damage Nature, we damage ourselves.
As humans, we have the ability to contemplate who we are and what we experience. The ecological crisis is an existential crisis, a crisis of understanding our place in the world. For thousands of years, faith traditions have provided humanity with narratives, to understand who we are. As people of faith, we embrace a worldview that includes those who came before us and those who will come after. Mother Earth, or the Creation, has always provided us with everything we need: air to breathe, water to drink and food to eat. We need to respect and protect the Earth for our home to remain hospitable, abundant and beautiful into the future. We have the choice now, to become healers, caretakers, and participants in the living whole. To shift the relationship between humanity and nature from harm to harmony.
As people of faith from all around the world, we demand a global response to prevent Ecocide. To live in peace with each other we must live in peace with the Earth. The rules of our societies are laws, and we can change them to protect the most vulnerable and that which is precious. In the Anthropocene a duty of care is required at the very highest level to protect the Earth. Ecocide must become a crime against peace at the International Criminal Court, among the other crimes of concern to the whole international community.
Together we strive to end Ecocide and to heal the Earth. We are the temples, churches, pagodas, mosques, synagogues, cathedrals and sacred sites all around the world. With faith, hope, love and care for our common future!
Spread the word! Here are resources for you and your organisation to use and share.
“Faith voices for ecocide law” is a remarkable collection of texts, drawing on the vast wisdom, teachings and practices of the world religions and indigenous spiritual traditions. It focuses on the relationship between humans and nature in general, and on the need for a new international crime of ecocide in particular.
The authors are recognised spiritual leaders in their faith traditions.
The book is a resource for discussion and education by faith communities, universities and other organisations.
“Faith voices for ecocide law” is a remarkable collection of texts, drawing on the vast wisdom, teachings and practices of the world religions and indigenous spiritual traditions. It focuses on the relationship between humans and nature in general, and on the need for a new international crime of ecocide in particular. The authors are recognised spiritual leaders in their faith traditions (see below). The book is a resource for discussion and education by faith communities, universities and other organisations.
Faith voices for ecocide law is published by End Ecocide Sweden and Stop Ecocide International with partners: Cambridge Mosque Trust, Centre for Applied Buddhism, Green Faith, Interfaith Centre for Sustainable Development, Parliament of World’s Religions, Pacific Conference of Churches, Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology and Azote.
The Faith for Ecocide Law initiative is an interreligious coalition gathering religious and spiritual leaders and voices to express support for an international crime of ecocide.
Reverend James Bhagwan is the General Secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, the peak ecumenical organisation for the Pacific/Oceania region, comprising 33 member churches and 10 national councils of churches that account for at least 70% of the region's human population. Christian-Pacific perspective: Reweaving Our Ecological Mat
Jamie Cresswell is the Director of the Centre for Applied Buddhism and the President of the European Buddhist Union. His background includes a degree in Buddhist studies as well as practice and study in many traditions and schools. Buddhist perspective: Opening a Treasure House of Possibilities
KG Hammar was the Archbishop of the Church of Sweden from 1997 to 2006. Hammar is a researcher at the University of Lund and author of several books on theology. Christian perspective: Transforming the world into the dream of God
Michele Lamb is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Buddhism, and Fellow of the University of Essex Human Rights Centre. Buddhist perspective: Opening a Treasure House of Possibilities
Helene Lindmark is a Sámi Noaidi, wisdom keeper. She grew up in Liikavaara, a village in the northern part of Sápmi, Sweden. She walks the Shamanic tradition of her ancestors' heritage from Sápmi; the northern parts of Sweden, Russia and Finland. Indigenous Sami perspective: The drum is the heartbeat of Mother Earth
Appolinaire Oussou Lio is the Tolinou DJAKA Atawevi, prince of the Tolinou kingdom of Benin, writer, geographer and naturalist, President of GRABE-BENIN. He works for the validation of endogenous knowledge, the culture of peoples and the protection of forests and sacred sites. Indigenous Vodun perspective: The Sacred Pool
Sheikh Abdal Hakim Murad a.k.a. Professor Timothy Winter is currently the Sheikh Zayed Lecturer of Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University. He has published and contributed to numerous academic works on Islam. He is also the founder of the Cambridge Muslim College. Prof Winter has been the main force behind the decade-long project to build the Cambridge Central Mosque, Europe's first eco-mosque. Islamic perspective: A re-enchantment of our vision of the natural world
Rabbi Yonatan Neril is the founder and director of The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development in Jerusalem and co-author of the bestselling book Eco Bible. Jewish perspective: Caring for creation is key to receiving the blessings of the Creator
HH Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswati is the President and spiritual head of the Parmarth Niketan Ashram. He is the founder and co-founder of several humanitarian and environmental organisations including Ganga Action Parivar and the Global Interfaith WASH Alliance, and on the Board of World Religious Leaders. Hindu perspective: From a greed culture to a green culture
Mary Evelyn Tucker teaches at Yale University at the School of the Environment and the Divinity School. She is, with John Grim, the Co-Director of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. Tucker was a member of the Earth Charter Drafting committee and the International Earth Charter Council. Interreligious perspective: On the need for a new Earth Ethics
Add your voice to the inter-religious coalition calling for ecocide to be recognised as an international crime.
