Wally's remarks on Iowa's habitat are excellent for already developed
Iowa, but the issues is allowing human exploitation of already protected
National Parks. But according to your argument of human need at the
moment and population as a justification to allowing human hunting or
gathering in permanently protected wilderness areas opens the door to
where will we stop with that.  There is already intense pressure for
uranium mining affecting the Grand Canyon and drilling right next to
sensitive arches in Arches National Park. We've heard enough from oil
companies claiming they can drill using "sustainable practices".  The
issue is keeping hard fought for permanent protection for National Parks
and other protected places.  Having experience on what it took to protect
the roadless Wild Sky Wilderness in WA State that would protect old
growth along salmon streams and not allow roads was an education in how
hard people try to stop protection so they can exploit.  We simply do not
agree on religion nor the need to keep hunting activities out of National
Parks.  Hunting, trapping and fishing is allowed in every National
Wildlife Refuge and we see damage from local Alaska planes landing in the
Arctic Refuge for hunting.  I expect Sierra Club to continue to keep
protected land free from human development of any kind and that's why I'm
an activist member working on wilderness issues.  It's OK to disagree and
this discussion raised some points to consider.  Thank you.  Phyllis

See my reply to Wally, which addresses some of your points. As far as
religion having no place in environmental concerns, I take strong issue
with that. I suggest that you read Stephen Lansing’s work on the
millennium-old rice irrigation system on the island of Bali, which is
managed mostly through a well-established Hindu temple system. The
entire, elaborate, religiously managed system nearly collapsed in the
1980s when scientific principles (the Green Revolution) were introduced
(hybrid rice, mechanized ag, pesticides) to try to increase production
for an export economy. Fortunately Lansing and others saw what was
happening and mitigated a lot of the damage.
 
There are any of a number of studies by my colleagues that show how local
communities, informed strongly by religious values, have engaged in
sustainable practices. Some of the studies come from the Amazon basin.
Walter Goldschmidt did such a study in California in the 1940s, called
“As You Sow.” One town was fairly cohesive and locally oriented, while
the other was influenced by the “religion” of the dollar. Granted that
most of the studies I have in mind are not “world” religions –
Christianity, Islam, and others that have fueled colonial doctrines. 
 
I also don’t want to paint “native peoples” as some kind of “original
environmentalists.” Humans in almost all places and in almost all times,
at least since the invention of the city-state, have overused their
ecosystems: Maya, Zapotec, Aztec (Aztec society’s collapse was speeded by
the encounter with the Spanish), Easter Island, the Norse in Greenway….
Jared Diamond’s book, “Collapse,” is an interesting presentation of
numerous well-studied examples.
 
I’m saying that Sierra’s response appears to make unsupported
assumptions. You offer some of the additional information that I would
require before signing onto an action alert like the one where this all
started. No fan of world religions myself, I also can present
counter-evidence that religious values can inform environmentally
friendly practices. This really isn’t a debate about “religion” as such,
and if religion enters at all, it’s because certain religious tenets and
practices encourage environmental destruction. But not all.
 
Leland Searles

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