Scientists, spiritual leaders, and conservationists, including U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, will gather at Yale May 11-14 for a conference on religion and the natural world.
Stephen Kellert, professor of social ecology at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and one of five conference hosts, said the meeting will provide an unprecedented forum for natural resource practitioners, foresters, commercial fishermen, land developers and agriculturists to talk to scientists and religious and spiritual leaders.
“We hope this unusual dialogue will help us begin to bridge the divide between faith and reason that has been characteristic of Western and other civilizations for millennia,” Kellert said.
In addition to Babbitt, speakers at “The Good in Nature and Humanity: Connecting Science, Religion and the Natural World” conference, will include: Wendell Berry, writer and professor at the University of Kentucky; Sylvia Earle, director of Deep Ocean Exploration and Research and former administrator of NOAA; “Arctic Dreams” author Barry Lopez; writer Terry Tempest Williams at the Utah Museum of Natural History; Lynn Margulis of the University of Massachusetts; and Wes Jackson, director of The Land Institute, among others.
Kellert said another discussion will be about how ordinary people can integrate their own ethical, practical and scientific concerns about the nation’s land.
“We want to identify a spiritual and environmental ethic that will enable us to maintain a healthy balance between land use, land management and land protection,” he said.
Robert Perschel, forester and director of The Wilderness Society’s Network of Wildlands Program, and a conference host, said, “Many Americans are yearning to find a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their work. This desire exists as strongly for land use practitioners, scientists and environmental activists as it does for other professionals whose work is not as closely connected to the natural world.”
“Our conference signifies not only a growing academic inquiry into nature and humanity, but also a practical inquiry that is occurring in diverse areas around the country such as farms, woodlots and harbor docks,” Perschel said. “People have a spiritual connection to the land and want this connection acknowledged in public debates as well as in their own personal decisions about how to treat the environment.”
Conference sponsor Richard J. Wood, Dean of the Yale Divinity School, also a conference sponsor, said the conference is intended to revitalize a religious sensibility to nature “as we help all members of society move towards an environmentally healing humanity.”
All sessions of the conference are free and open to the public. Please register in advance with Roberta Hudson, Yale Conference Services, 203/432-0465, confserv@yale.edu. Information about the conference is also available at www.yale.edu/natureandhumanity.
