THE CONTRIBUTION OF RELIGION TO ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION IN SOME SELECTED TOWNS IN KOGI STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Religion can play a vital role in influencing attitudes, behaviour, perceptions, modes of coping and 
actions in response to environmental problems, but it has been largely ignored in Nigerian 
ecological discourses. This essay therefore, examines the contribution of Religion to 
Environmental Conservation in Some Selected Towns in Kogi State, the study used primary and 
secondary data sources and careful observations of the contemporary environmental crisis in the 
study area. The study adopted historic, thematic and content constructive analysis. This study 
observed that the nature of environmental pollution in these towns include air, land and water 
pollution, and the sources of pollution were traced to the unhealthy practices and unfriendly 
attitudes of residents including butchers, householder, traders, transporters, farmers and students 
towards the environment as well as vehicular and industrial emission reducing the air quality in 
the city. This work reveals that the unhealthy practices have negatively affected residents’ health 
issues, and argues that pollution in these towns have the tendency of not only affecting 
humankinds, but the regional and global environments. It was also observed that, despite the fact 
that, all religions within the study area have ethical injunctions that geared towards environmental 
conservation, the efforts towards conserving the environment was not felt nor taught explicitly by 
her leaders. Hence, to reduce environmental degradation, this study submits that environmental 
degradation problems in the study area and somewhere else, can be effectively address through 
religious stewardship, eco-justice and creation spirituality, which are the emerging environmental 
ethical ideologies in contemporary Christianity and other religions.