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What the media have said about ARC
September 30, 2008 :
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ARC has been described as "a bridge between two worlds". |
UK National Media
**** January 28, 2009: The Guardian newspaper published a column about religion in China which quoted extensively from ARC’s work in that area. Written by philosopher and writer Mark Vernon, the article featured an interview with ARC’s Secretary General, Martin Palmer. It described ARC as “one of the few outside organisations that have a license from the Chinese government to work with religious groups in the country.” Link
here to read ARC's news item on this. Link here to read the Guardian article. And link
here to learn about the Daoist Eight Year Plan introducing Generational Changes to protect the environment, created in October 2008.
**** The Guardian's article of June 18, 2008 about "The Pope of Hope", His All Holiness, Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, features ARC and our sister organisation, IFEES. Fazlun Khalid, now Director of the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences, " ...is recognised as an expert on ecology from an Islamic perspective". Formerly working as a Director of Training with ARC, and a WWF Consultant, Fazlun commented: "As the guardians of Allah's creation we have a responsibility to protect the environment. In our eagerness to 'progress' and 'develop' we have lost sight of the finite and delicate nature of planet Earth and of humanity's place in it."
Link toThe Guardian
to read about the work of the leader of the Orthodox Church to promote environmental care.
**** In January 2008, Martin Palmer, ARC's Secretary General took part in a Radio Four debate about "Cultures of Apocalypse". Link here for more details of this debate.
**** ARC was featured in September 2007 in an Economist article on faith leaders and ecologists combining forces to protect the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka. It was one of two stories about faiths and conservation in The Economist within a month: the other, on October 6th, was a story about Parsi/Zoroastrian involvement in raptor protection programmes. Link here for that story.
**** In April 2007 The Guardian in the UK published a major feature on the Vatican conference on climate change, being held that week. Correspondents John Vidal and Tom Kington highlighted how the Vatican had added its voice to a rising chorus of warnings from churches around the world that climate change and abuse of the environment is against God's will, and that the Catholic church, with its one billion believers, must become greener. ARC was invited to comment on how the Catholic church is just one of several faith groups that are rapidly moving environment to the fore of its social teachings. "Climate change, biotechnology, trade justice and pollution are all now being debated at a far higher level by the world's major religions," ARC's Martin Palmer was quoted as saying.
**** "The Alliance of Religions and Conservation is a charity that brings together conservationists and members of living faiths which have a tradition of revering the natural world. It works in concert to protect hallowed plants, animals and habitats — spirituality and science for once making common cause". Mark Griffiths, The Times , May 21, 2005.
International Media
***** "Of course, not everybody will automatically turn into an environmentalist if they understand a little ecology or learn that caring for the environment is a religious duty. However, if environmental conservation is publicly understood to be a religious duty, it will be much easier for conservation workers to do their job." Link here for a column in the Jakarta Post, August 2008, urging religious leaders to get more involved in the environment.
**** An article in Malaysia's The Star newspaper on July 22, 2008 singles out ARC's work as a good initiative working with a range of religions on key environmental issues. The article, entitled “Be agents of change” by Star reporter Soo Ewe Jin, describes the work of Christian conservation organization, A Rocha. Quoting its upcoming chairman, botanist and ecologist Sir Ghillean Prance, saying: "We will only achieve the major changes needed in our lifestyle if it is backed up by religions.” Link here for the full article in the Malaysia Star.
**** The Times Herald
features the new partnerships forged by the United Nations with religious communities... And uses ARC's work as a major example.
(This article was originally published in One Country, The newsletter of the Baha'I International community, and was republished in the Times Herald, on July 4, 2008).
"UNITED NATIONS - With words like "peace," "dialogue," and "cooperation" salted through its agenda, the program for a special hearing of the General Assembly last autumn might have been any of a thousand meetings here. But what made the 4-5 October 2007 "High-Level Dialogue and Informal
Interactive Hearing with Civil Society on Interreligious and Intercultural
Understanding and Cooperation for Peace" different was the degree to which a
new actor was spotlighted before the UN's most globally representative body. That new actor was religion - or, rather, people who directly represent
religious communities from around the world. ...
* A new collaboration/partnership between the UN Development Programme
(UNDP) and the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC) to better
involve world religions in addressing climate change and specifically to
help religions develop concrete programs of action to slow global warming. ...
The UNDP's new initiative with the ARC on climate change aims also at
concrete action. Under the terms of that initiative, Baha'i, Buddhist,
Christian, Taoist, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, Sikh and Zoroastrian
leaders will be invited to commit their communities to projects that address
climate change and the protection of the natural environment in "practical
ways"--from "forestry conservation to organic farming schemes to
introducing, promoting and financing alternative energy sources," according
to the ARC". Link here to read the full article.
**** " ...India's faith-based organizations are also helping spread the gospel of green. The UK-based Alliance of Religions and Conservation, which works with the UN to involve religious groups in environmental outreach, is working on a conservation campaign in the holy city of Vrindavan, as well as pushing India's 28,000 Sikh temples to convert their kitchens to green technology. The combined potential of such efforts is limitless. India's religious groups have sizable incomes, own vast amounts of land, and have enormous influence on public opinion through their educational institutions. Indeed, with 99% of Indians professing to one faith or another, the country's green movement might not have a prayer without them". Link here to read the article from the July 2008 Time Magazine about the use of solar power in India's temples and the ARC's contribution in encouraging the faiths in their environmental efforts.
**** America's National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast a major feature on ARC's work as part of its acclaimed series on climate change in April 2008. The feature includes a series of interviews with ARC's secretary general Martin Palmer, talking about the religions' major role in combatting climate change and helping the natural environment as well as a little about his own journey. Link here for the NPR story and to listen to the broadcast.
**** In January 2008, CNN.com credited ARC as a resource for an article on "Religion and the Environment". Link here for the full feature.
**** In 2006, ARC participated in an environmental audit project with Benedictine nuns. This resulted in the publication of a successful environmental handbook which has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese and English.
In October 2007 Eric Reguly, the Rome correspondent for Toronto's Globe and Mail, wrote an article on Catholic eco-action and the handbook.
He commented, "... last year, the Benedictine Sisters in Erie, Pa., published a 200-page document called Listening to the Earth: An Environmental Audit for Benedictine Communities. Financed by the World Bank [in partnership with ARC], elegantly written and impeccably researched, it discusses the sources of pollution and offers suggestions on how to cure or reduce them, right down to what to make of white smoke from a diesel engine ("faulty fuel-injection system")".
Link here for more details on Catholic eco-action and the Benedictine Handbook.
Local Media
**** In July 2008 ARC helped launch an appeal to raise £125,000 for improvements and maintenance for St Mary's Church in Bitton. Martin Palmer from ARC spoke about the historic importance of the church and its Saxon origins. Link here for the Bath Chronicle article about ARC and the appeal.
**** Bath Abbey hosted a Climate Change Debate in April 2008. BBC Bristol commented: "Martin Palmer, Director of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, is well-qualified to answer the question of whether religion is a help or a hindrance in responding to climate change". Link here
to see the rest of the article.
**** "ARC acts as a bridge between the two worlds [of nature and faith]" Susie Weldon, Western Daily Press, Bristol, 13 August 2007. Link here to download the full article as a pdf file (2.5MB).
Link here to see Videos and Podcasts on Religions and the natural Environment.
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ARC-UN: Faiths' Long Term Commitments
ARC has joined with the UNDP for an innovative programme to work with the major faiths to address climate change and the natural environment through faith-based 7 Year Plans for generational change. |
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ARC Newsletters
Newsletters sent out by ARC |
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Updated: 24 August, 2010 :
ARC's diary of events
Link here for ARC's diary: key talks, meetings, radio etc. |
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