Abstract
South Africa’s conservation sector operates in a complex socio-ecological crisis, where severe environmental degradation is deeply intertwined with the legacies of colonialism, apartheid, and ongoing structural inequalities. While Christianity is the country’s dominant faith, with over 80% of the population identifying as Christian, the connection has not been studied between high-level academic frameworks, such as ecotheology and the lived, faith-based experiences of practitioners on the ground. This study was motivated by the need to bridge this gap by empirically investigating how faith informs the tangible worldviews and practices of women involved in environmental conservation.
This study addressed this connection that has not been studied by crucially examining the experiences of selected Christian women actively engaged in environmental conservation in and around the Kruger National Park (KNP). Guided by the main research question: “How does faith influence the worldviews and practices of selected Christian women involved in environmental conservation in South Africa?", the research explored faith as a potential, yet often overlooked, contributor to environmental ethics and women’s agency in the field.
Adopting a qualitative, phenomenological research design, the study explored nine participants’ lived experiences and the subjective meanings they attach to the intersection of faith and conservation. Data was collected through thirteen semi-structured interviews (ten conducted in person and three online) and participant observation in two conservation training settings in the KNP. The final sample of interviewees, recruited via purposive and snowball sampling, comprised nine Christian women, seven white Afrikaans-speaking and two black Pedi women, who held diverse conservation roles. An inductive thematic analysis was employed to interpret the data, framed theoretically by an ecofeminist theology that values embodied experience and relational knowledge.
The key findings revealed that faith and conservation are not separate domains but exist in a dynamic, reciprocal relationship where nature acts as a primary catalyst for spiritual formation. Participants consistently described nature as a sacred space or “sanctuary”, a place of direct, unmediated encounter with God that was often preferred ...