Humans and Nature: Does Religion Make a Difference in Indonesia?

The Human and Nature scale (HaN scale) was developed in the Western context to investigate the relationship between ideas about nature and landscape planning. This pilot study expands the HaN scale and includes religion as an independent variable to investigate perceptions of human-nature relations in Indonesia. It examines how religious affiliation and religious practices influence visions of human-nature relations. This study shows that religious affiliation makes no difference. Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, and Hindus share their acceptance of the stewardship, partnership, and participation models while rejecting the master model. However, religious practice does make a difference. Those who practice religion to a lesser extent tend to agree more with the mastery vision than those who practice religion to a greater extent. This study suggests that religion makes a difference, not in terms of what religion respondents affiliate with, but in how religious they are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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