Sacred Ecology

TL;DR

This paper investigates how African Traditional Religions influence ecosystem conservation in Benin, demonstrating that increased ATR adherence leads to positive environmental outcomes through sustainable land use, supported by a theoretical model and empirical analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework linking ATR beliefs to pro-environmental behavior and provides empirical evidence of ATR's positive impact on forest conservation in Benin.

Findings

ATR adherence increases forest and canopy cover

Sustainable land use policies driven by ATR beliefs

Without ATR, Benin would face 10% loss in tree canopy

Abstract

Can religions shape ecosystems? We explore the role religious beliefs play in human-environment interactions by studying African Traditional Religions (ATR), which place forests within a sacred sphere. We focus on the unique case of Benin, whose history is deeply intertwined with traditional religions and where adherence is reliably reported. By exploiting three sources of exogenous variation in Benin's exposure to Charismatic Pentecostalism, we find that increase in ATR adherence yields positive changes in both forest and tree canopy cover. This increase is driven by sustainable land use policies rather than cooperation and shared governance mechanisms. To understand how ATR beliefs shape the way individuals combine the sacred and the ecology in their preferences, we build a theoretical framework of deforestation with heterogeneous pro-environmental attitudes driven by ATR adherence. Bringing the model to the data, we estimate that without any ATR adherence Benin would experience a loss of 10% of its tree canopy area, and would exhibit unsustainable deforestation rates. Our results show how ATR beliefs can play a fundamental role in forest and ecosystem conservation.