Call for Nominations - Assisi Award - Deadline June 25th
Stephen M. Awoyemi
Dear colleague,
Please circulate this reminder:
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A new awareness is emerging among the world’s religions. Increasing
numbers of individuals and organizations recognise that the moral
responsibility to protect and conserve all life on Earth is integral to the
teachings of their faiths. However, this trend has risen within a secular
conservation framework that lacks a global structure for recognizing selfless
acts of faith-based service to life on Earth. The Religion and Conservation
Biology Working Group (RCBWG) of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB)
seeks to address this gap by creating the Assisi
Award for conservation efforts that are motivated by religious faith. The
name of the award celebrates a historical meeting held in Assisi, Italy, in
1986 on initiative of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and at that time
President of WWF International. In that occasion, important declarations in
favor of the environment were for the first time issued by leaders of all major
world religions. The town of Assisi was chosen as the site of the event for its
connection to St Francis, a saint ecumenically admired and respected also by
non-Christians in virtue of his reverence for nature and tight bond with the
natural world.
The Assisi Award recognizes
that religious and spiritual motivation springs from the depths of being, and
is an enduring source of meaning for billions on the planet. As such, it
constitutes a fundamental driver of conservation action. This award will reinforce
the ongoing dialogue amongst faiths and conservation by acknowledging organizations
and individuals that are demonstrating through their successes that faith-based
conservation is contributing significantly to the common global effort of
conserving life on Earth. The award will target initiatives from around the
world that are conceived in the context of both mainstream religious groups and
indigenous spiritual traditions. The award, in the form of a non-pecuniary
recognition, will be officially conferred in the context of a major meeting of
the SCB every two years.
These are the criteria that will be followed to assign the award:
- Evidence that nominator visited the location site/area of the nominated conservation project(s), including the date of visit(s) and names of the key project(s) participants interviewed. This evidence and the related details may alternatively be collected by a member of the Awards Committee, if the nominator did not personally visit the project.
- Evidence of faith-based conservation activity and description of its spiritual/religious context (e.g., a document describing the project(s), the motivations that drove it, and the names of the communities and key representatives involved; OR a web page providing this information; OR, if pertinent, an announcement of funding and/or a report to a donor regarding project(s) progress/completion). It is key that the conservation activities nominated are fully cognizant with and motivated by the spiritual values of the faith tradition in whose context they have been promoted.
- Evidence of the conservation goal(s) achieved through faith-based initiatives (e.g., report to a funding organization; OR web site describing project(s) results; OR scientific articles(s)/other grey literature). Although not strictly required, quantitative evidence of conservation success shall add weight to the nomination.
- The quality of the supporting material (e.g., evidence of visits to the project(s) location and personnel, audio-visual material, exposure in news and media, social media, articles in scientific journals or grey literature, broader social and/or political impacts).
- The names,
affiliations, and contact information of two referees who can attest to
the faith-based project(s) being nominated. Evidence that at least one of
the referees has visited the project(s) personnel and location shall be
required, if analogous evidence was provided neither by nominator nor by a
member of the Awards Committee.
Deadline for receiving nominations is June 25th, 2016.
Download the nomination form here: http://conbio.org/publications/scb-news-blog/introducing-the-assisi-award-for-faith-based-conservation
Stephen M. Awoyemi