THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY IN NIGERIA

Human existence would have been a farce without the environment just as without human beings, there would be nothing known as the environment. In fact without the environment, there wouldn’t be a place where human beings can exist and without human beings tending and caring for the environment, it would have been a waste land without any benefit. The environment and human beings complement each other. This work attempts to bring to the fore the fact that one cannot talk about human beings and the environment without giving religion its pride of place especially with regards to the vital role God played in creation. In most parts of the world especially in Nigeria, the environment have been polluted due largely to the activities of the same human beings who ought to, and is expected to preserve it. The method used in data gathering is basically the secondary source of data collection while the descriptive phenomenological approach of data analysis was adopted. Our findings revealed that religion has solution to every challenge human beings face in the world including environmental problems. The study proved that religion provides the most viable means through which effective environmental management can be achieved in Nigeria, since the three main religions practiced in Nigeria are rooted in environmental ethics and values. This work, therefore, maintains and concludes that managers and policy makers, government and non-governmental agencies; collaborating with religious leaders should lay more emphasis on religious values to achieve the sustenance of the environment for the good of humanity at large.

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