Int'l Environment Group Applauds Chinese Taoists for Efforts on Environmental Protection
From a call for burning fewer incense sticks to living a simpler life, from an appeal to ban the use of tiger bones for making medicine to the issuance of a global ecology statement, Chinese Taoists have won recognition and applause from an international environmental protection group for their conservation efforts.
"Taoism is one of the most best ways to achieve sustainability," said Martin Palmer, secretary-general of the U.K.-based Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), while attending the ongoing International Taoism Forum held in central China's Hunan province.
"Taoism does not just view sustainability as a purely human concern. Of course, part of our concern is making sure that we and our children and our grandchildren have enough food to eat, water to drink, materials to build and means to travel. But Taoism also says that we must help to sustain the whole cosmos, of which we are but a part," he said.
The Chinese Taoist Association has cooperated with ARC since the international organization was founded in 1995. Currently, the two sides are jointly carrying out an Eight-Year Plan (2010-2017) for the protection of the environment.
The Chinese Taoist Association, in accordance with the plan, has been calling for a healthier and more environmentally friendly style of pilgrimage and travel. The association has advocated "three-stick incense burning," a practice in which just three sticks of incense are burned in temples, rather than a massive pile, in order to reduce pollution. The association has also recommended offerings of biodegradable flowers and fruit.
Reforms and improvements in pilgrimage methods have already started in Taoist temples and on Taoist mountains.
Source: Xinhua |