The Impact of Religious Behaviour on the Environment

Abstract

The dynamism induced by some religious beliefs has an important influence on human uses of the environment. Christianity is the outstanding example. Christian missionaries have always accompanied and strengthened trade. Jesuits accompanied fur traders in the wilds of central Canada; Spanish priests accompanied the gold seekers to Mexico and Peru. The United States owes Hawaii largely to the efforts of American missionaries. Thirty years after their arrival in the islands, they had secured tracts of land and held all the important offices under the government. This had far-reaching consequences since it laid the foundation in the early twentieth century of the landed aristocracy of planters. Their sons and grandsons took the lead in the revolution of 1893 and in the movement for the annexation of the islands to the United States (Semple 1947, 98–9). Christian missionaries in those parts of Africa colonized by Britain had an educational influence which played an important role in the adhesion of these territories to the British Commonwealth after their independence.