To Save Nature, Make It Sacred

Beyond science and policy, the key to protecting Earth’s most vulnerable ecosystems may lie in the human capacity to treat certain places as sacred.

In the mountainous heart of Mauritius lies a remarkable lake. Known as the Grand Bassin (the Great Pond), it sits inside the crater of an extinct volcano and is surrounded by one of the island’s last remaining patches of native rainforest, a rare survivor of colonial-era deforestation that destroyed swathes of the pristine ecosystem that once blanketed the island. On the lake’s northern shore stand two statues, each 108 feet tall. One is of Shiva, the smiling, trident-bearing destroyer of evil, the other of his fierce consort Durga. Together, they form a striking tableau of divine guardianship of the hallowed grounds at their feet, where nature, myth and devotion converge.

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