*[Enwl-eng] Warming could erase world's sacred sites
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Thu Aug 17 01:50:52 MSK 2023
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A catastrophic wildfire that swept the Hawaiian island of Maui last
week has claimed 106 lives – but with 1,300 people still reported missing,
the true toll of this disaster has yet to be confirmed. The town of Lahaina
on Maui's west coast was hit particularly hard, and with its destruction
comes the loss of irreplaceable Native Hawaiian heritage.
You're reading the Imagine newsletter – a weekly synthesis of academic
insight on solutions to climate change, brought to you by The Conversation.
I'm Jack Marley, energy and environment editor. This week, we're discussing
the threat of climate change to some of humanity's most treasured places.
"[Maui] has been revered by its Indigenous peoples as a sacred place
for generations. In the 19th century, it served as the home and burial place
of the Hawaiian royal family and became the first capital of the Hawaiian
Kingdom," says Rosalyn R. LaPier, professor of history at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Lahaina, 80% of which was destroyed in the recent fire, is the home of
Kihawahine, a woman who transformed into a mo‘o goddess (a guardian of a
freshwater pond) and might take the form of a shapeshifting lizard according
to Hawaiian religion. A fishpond at Mokuʻula, a small island in Lahaina, was
considered Kihawahine's residence, which Hawaiian royalty lived close to.
US colonists and sugarcane capitalists diverted freshwater springs in
Lahaina for irrigation, drying up the sacred pond which was later filled in
to create a park in the early 20th century. Efforts were underway to restore
Mokuʻula and revitalise its history as a sacred place for Native Hawaiians,
LaPier says. The fire could derail this process.
"As an Indigenous scholar who studies the environment and religion of
Indigenous peoples, I am interested in how environmental change such as the
catastrophic wildfire at Lahaina impacts sacred sites," LaPier says.
Lahaina's history shows how sacred sites were threatened by
colonialism before they were imperilled by climate change. LaPier quotes
Carmen Hulu Lindsey, the chair of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, who blames
"the fires of today [on] the climate crisis, a history of colonialism in our
islands, and the loss of our right to steward our ‘aina and wai’ [land and
water].”
In the Indian Himalayas at Kedarnath, the survival of a stone temple
amid surging flood waters in 2013 was interpreted by some as a divine
message.
Kedarnath sits at the base of a 20,000-feet peak in the northern
Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is a pilgrimage site for millions,
containing a conical rock formation worshipped as an embodied form of the
Hindu god Shiva. But it was wracked by tragedy a decade ago when heavy rain
caused the Mandakini River to burst its banks and a rubble dam holding back
glacial melt water suddenly breached.
"Glacial deterioration is happening worldwide, but subtropical
glaciers in high mountainous areas such as the Indian Himalayas are more
vulnerable because of their low latitudes," says David L. Haberman,
professor emeritus of religious studies at Indiana University. "Many climate
scientists believe that climate change is affecting the Himalayas more than
almost any other region of the world."
Within 15 minutes, a deluge amounting to half the volume of Niagara
Falls descended on Kedarnath. More than 6,000 people are thought to have
died, many of them pilgrims. Yet an oblong boulder fell in just the right
place to part the waters and save the temple.
"Every other building in the town of Kedarnath was demolished,"
Haberman says.
When climate disasters destroy or spare sacred sites such as
Kedarnath, the result can be a realisation of all that global heating
threatens to erase. Haberman discovered in his conversations with local
people that it can also recast the problem of climate change in spiritual
terms.
"There is no great difference between treating the gods with respect
and nature well," he says. "A woman I spoke to in Uttarkashi elaborated on
this: 'The gods and the land are the same. And we are mistreating both. The
floods are like a warning slap to a child. They are a wake-up call telling
us to change our ways ... If not, we will be finished.'"
Refuges under siege
Undisturbed by axes and ploughs for hundreds or even thousands of
years, sacred sites also tend to be havens for wildlife. John Healey (Bangor
University), John Halley and Kalliopi Stara (both University of Ioannina)
are ecologists who studied biodiversity at sacred village groves in the
mountainous region of Epirus in northwestern Greece.
The trio compared the species living in these groves with
conventionally managed forests. The groves contained twice as many songbirds
and significantly more fungi – as dead wood or old trees typically adorned
with mushrooms are often cleared during forest management.
"These places can act as a nucleus, around which biodiversity can
expand," they say. "In Epirus, forests have regenerated around many of the
sites we studied over the past 70 years – despite humans farming the land."
The benefits to biodiversity from the protection of sacred sites offer
another reason to cherish and preserve them. But research shows how
threatened many of these places are: rising sea levels could consume 70% of
Africa's heritage sites as early as 2050. The incalculable loss to cultures
and faiths worldwide motivate many demands on rich countries to compensate
the developing world for the crisis their emissions have overwhelmingly
created.
Reflecting on the devastation at Lahaina, LaPier takes heart from the
perseverance of Native Hawaiian culture.
"The historic buildings and cultural properties of this place will be
forever lost," LaPier says. "But the stories of Kihawahine and Hawaiian
sacred places will live on."
- Jack Marley, Environment commissioning editor
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Imagine.
Native Hawaiian sacred sites have been damaged in the Lahaina
wildfires – but, as an Indigenous scholar writes, their stories will live on
The region of Maui has been revered by its Indigenous peoples as a
sacred place for generations. It is believed to be the home of Kihawahine, a
woman who transformed into a goddess.
Read more
Threat from climate change to some of India’s sacred pilgrimage sites
is reshaping religious beliefs
At the pilgrimage site of Kedarnath in northern India, disastrous
flooding has led many to ask whether the gods are getting angry about human
behaviour.
Read more
Sacred sites have a biodiversity advantage that could help world
conservation
Many sacred sites such as temples, and churchyards are havens for
biodiversity.
Read more
Rising sea levels may threaten 70% of Africa’s heritage sites by 2050
Hundreds of Africa's heritage sites are exposed to sea-level rise and
coastal erosion in the future.
Read more
Poorer countries must be compensated for climate damage. But how
exactly do we crunch the numbers?
Extreme weather events are complex – and working out exactly how much
damage climate change caused is a tricky task.
Read more
Turning to faiths to save the planet. How religions shape
environmental movement in Indonesia
The problems of climate change are not only problems of science and
technology. They are also moral, ethical and spiritual problems about how we
live our lives.
Read more
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Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 8:02 PM
Subject: Warming could erase world's sacred sites
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