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1 The Environmental Impacts of Religious Tourism

Kiran A. Shinde1* and Daniel H. Olsen2

1College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce, La Trobe University, Australia; 2Brigham Young University

*Corresponding author: k.shinde@latrobe.edu.au

Introduction

Like other tourism niche markets, the religious tourism market has increased over the past two decades, with sacred sites in all faith traditions receiving record numbers of visitors (Olsen, 2013a; Butler and Suntikul, 2018). Some scholars and tourism experts suggest that, each year, between 200–600 million people travel for religious purposes (Timothy, 2011; World Tourism Organization, 2011), which has led scholars to investigate the linkages between religious/spiritual tourism and pilgrimage to sacred sites in different religions including:

• Islam (e.g. Din, 1989; Timothy and Iverson, 2006; Henderson, 2009, 2011; El Hanandeh, 2013; Bouyahya, 2016)

• Catholicism (e.g. Collins-Kreiner and Kliot, 2000; Fleischer, 2000; Voye, 2002; Pohoaţă et al., 2013; Rodrigues and McIntosh, 2014; Rodríguez et al., 2018)

• Protestantism (e.g. Collins-Kreiner and Kliot, 2000; Fleischer, 2000; Feldman, 2007; Ron and Feldman, 2009)

• Hinduism (e.g. Singh, 1997, 2005; Ghosal and Maity, 2010; Shinde, 2017, 2018; Pinkney and Whalen-Bridge, 2018)

• Buddhism (e.g. Hall, 2006; Goldberg, 2013; YES Bank, 2014; Geary and Mason, 2016; Chen et al., 2017; Wong, 2018)

• Sikhism (e.g. Jutla, 2002, 2006)

• Judaism (e.g. Kosansky, 2002; Cohen Ioannides and Ioannides, 2006; Collins-Kreiner, 2010a; Collins-Kreiner and Luz, 2018)

• Shintoism (e.g. Wong et al., 2013, 2016; Wong and Ryan, 2013; Nakanishi, 2018)

• The Bahai (e.g. Gatrell and Collins-Kreiner, 2006; Kreiner et al., 2015)

• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (e.g. Olsen, 2006b, 2013b, 2016, 2019b; Schott, 2010; Olsen and Timothy, 2018).

While a large body of work examines the interrelationships between pilgrimage, religion, and tourism from anthropological, theological, ethnographic, historical, geographical, and religious studies viewpoints (e.g. Timothy and Olsen, 2006; Badone and Roseman, 2004; Collins-Kreiner, 2010b; Stausberg, 2012), this is a young and growing field of academic inquiry.

One of the research areas that is sorely lacking is the relationships between religion, tourism, and the environment. With so many people travelling to religious sites and events for religious, educational, and leisure purposes, what do these large movements and flows of visitors mean for sacred places of great religious importance? How do such large numbers of visitors interact with both the natural and the human-built environments of these destinations? How can natural and human-built environments support pilgrimage and religious tourism at such scales, and if they cannot, what can be done to increase the carrying capacities at these sites?

Fig. 1.1. The interrelationships between religion, tourism, and the environment.

The purpose of this book is to examine the interrelationships between religion, tourism, and the environment (Fig. 1.1). This chapter sets the context for the other eleven chapters in this book by first briefly reviewing the literature between religion, tourism, and the environment, identifying gaps in the existing literature, and then presenting a conceptual model to understand the ecosystem of pilgrimage and religious tourism.

Tourism and Religion

There is a growing literature related to how religion and tourism influence each other (Timothy and Olsen, 2006). More particularly, this literature focuses on the similarities and differences between pilgrimage and religious tourism (Jackowski and Smith, 1992; Smith, 1992; Oberdick, 1995; Butler and Suntikul, 2018), with attempts to distinguish between leisure-inspired tourism and religiously motivated pilgrimages (Huntsinger and Fernández-Giménez, 2000; Bremer, 2000; Doron, 2005; Olsen, 2010; Shinde, 2012b; Damari and Mansfeld, 2016). These attempts have relied on the binary pairs of pilgrimage/tourism and pilgrim/tourist (Collins-Kreiner, 2010b; Olsen, 2010) binaries have also been used to illustrate the types of experiences different visitors have at sacred and religious sites (Fleischer, 2000; Poria et al., 2003).

Many scholars have posited that religious tourism has its origins in religious practice of pilgrimage (Tomasi, 2002; Timothy and Olsen, 2006; Shinde, 2007b; Butler and Suntikul, 2018). Driven by religious needs and with religious and sacred places as its destination, pilgrimage is generally considered a form of tourism because of its use of existing tourism infrastructure for mobility purposes (Gupta, 1999; Timothy and Olsen, 2006). As Olsen and Timothy (2006, p. 7) argue, ‘A “pilgrim” is a tourist (religious tourist) who is motivated by spiritual or religious factors’. Indeed, religious tourism combines elements of both religion and tourism, which combinations vary depending on a person’s beliefs, needs, motivations, behaviour, and sought-after outcomes. However, there seems to be limited understanding of religious tourists– they are not a homogenous group (Olsen, 2013a). On the contrary, most religious sites will have a considerable blending of different types of religious tourists – from pilgrims who perform staunch rituals to those interested in the educational aspects of religious heritage to free-spirited travellers seeking to fulfill life goals through engaging with religious and spiritual practices (Huntsinger and Fernández- Giménez, 2000; Terzidou et al., 2008; Moufakkir and Selmi, 2018; Rodríguez et al., 2018). The nature of religious tourism and religious tourists differs based on religions, faiths, followers, religiosity, and the religious relevance of sites. The authors wonder if these different types of visitors lead to different kinds of impacts at religious tourism destinations. Moreover, do, different religious motivations translate into types of religious behaviour that have any bearing on the environmental impacts of religious tourism?

In recent years, the seasonality and visitation patterns within the religious tourism niche market have changed (Shinde, 2007a, 2017). For example, while religious rituals and performances are at the core of the pilgrimage economy that revolves around ‘the concept of providing for the God and a sacred routine focusing on conspicuous consumption’ (Rösel, 1983, p. 51), recreational activities are generally more hedonistic in nature. This mix of sacred and secular motivations and activities – a distinguishing feature of religious tourism – can have significant impacts on religious tourism destinations in terms of numbers of visitors, when these visitors come, and the activities in which they seek to participate. Also, outside of special religious events and feast days on religious calendars, most religious tourism destinations, like any other mass tourist destination, experience peak visitation during weekends, particularly by local and regional residents (Shinde, 2018). At the same time, as noted below, increasing religious tourism by international visitors is beginning to lead to a lack of seasonality, with religious tourism taking place throughout the entire week.

Some scholarship has focused on the broader philosophical aspects of these relationships, including cosmology, mythology, rituals, geography of sacred places, cultural performances, and religious-cultural heritage as related to religious tourism (e.g. McIntosh and Prentice, 1999; Olsen, 2003; Andriotis, 2011). However, until comparatively recently, little has been written on the more mundane aspects of religious tourism, such as infrastructure development, site management, and policy-making (e.g. Shackley, 2001; Petrillo, 2003; Raj and Morpeth, 2007; Rotherham, 2007; Shani et al., 2007; Henderson, 2011; Shinde, 2012a). Also, even though religious tourism causes negative environmental impacts at host destinations (Holden, 2003; Olsen and Timothy, 2006; Shinde, 2007a), little has been written on these impacts of religious tourism both at local and broader geographical scales.

Tourism and Environment

At a basic level, pilgrimage refers to the movement of people to a religious or sacred site. In many cases, such as the Kumbha Mela in India, which has approximately 120 million participants (both pilgrims and tourists), the sheer scale and magnitude of these pilgrimages makes them no different from mass tourism in terms of their environmental impacts (Shinde, 2018).

There is a vast literature on the relationships between tourism and the environment (e.g. Holden and Fennell, 2012; Ballantyne and Packer, 2013; Mostafanezhad et al., 2016; Dowling and Newsome, 2018). Within this literature, scholars have proposed several models to understand these relationships better. For example, Cohen (1978, p. 228) has presented a conceptual model suggesting four key ways tourism and the environment are related. These four ways include the intensity of tourist site-use (i.e. the numbers of visitors, duration of stay; their activities and facilities at their disposal); the resiliency of the ecosystem (i.e. the capability of the place to absorb the impacts); the pace of development (i.e. of tourist infrastructure); and the transformational character of touristic developments (i.e. attractions and further development). Cohen argued further that a combination of these factors would result in ‘the accumulated environmental effects of growth, urbanization, commercialization, and functional diversification on the original tourist core areas’. Several studies have since illustrated the impacts on the natural and human-built sociocultural and physical environments of host destinations (e.g. Singh, 2002; Ambrósio, 2003; Alipour et al., 2017).

While being debated, criticised, and modified over the past few decades (see Butler, 2006), another significant model is Butler’s (1980) Tourist Area Life Cycle, which continues to provide a fundamental understanding of how increases in tourism flows alter the physical environment in a tourist destination. Based on carrying capacity concerns, this model outlines the different stages through which tourism development occurs. While this model has been widely used in leisure-oriented tourism to help develop appropriate tourism developmental and marketing polices, its application to religious sites has been fairly limited, with the exception of a comparative study of four religious destinations in Europe (Ambrósio, 2003) and a recent study of religious tourism in Mashdad, Iran (Alipour et al., 2017).

Scholars have also used a systems approach to understand the relationships between tourism and environment and their growing complexities (Leiper, 1990; Holden, 2007; Buckley, 2011). While host destination environments attract tourists, the needs of these tourists and the tourism infrastructure developed to meet those needs alter these same environments. One model, proposed by Holden (2007, p. 9), notes that the tourism system has a range of different inputs, including nature and human resources, which resources are made available to consumers through a market system and regulated by government policies to attract investment. These inputs are combined with three distinct but interrelated subsystems – tourism retailing (e.g. corporate and independent travel agents and agencies), destinations (e.g. natural and cultural attractions, local transportation and accommodation infrastructure), and transportation (e.g. global airlines, car rental, and bus companies). These inputs and subsystems, when combined with different societal influence (e.g. changing consumer tastes, demographics, environmental and media, and technology), create a series of positive and negative outputs or outcomes that have the potential to either bring positive or negative cultural and environmental change to a destination. Holden’s model also places a focus on broader contemporary environmental issues such as carbon emissions from flights, and tourist satisfaction.

Another stream of research regarding tourism—environment relationships is how tourists interact with and experience the environment. Several studies have shown that different types of tourists desire different environmental interactions as a part of their tourism experience (e.g. Young, 1999; Shoval, 2000; Andriotis, 2009). Iso-Ahola (1980), for example, identifies four major types of experiences tourists have with the environment in a leisure—recreational setting:

• environment as a setting for action (i.e. where interaction between tourists and the environment takes place)

• environment as a social system (i.e. where environment is the setting where social interaction and bonding takes place)

• environment as emotional territory (i.e. the emotional attachment people have to an environment)

• environment as self (i.e. where the environment and oneself become inseparable).

Research has also focused on the perceptions of residents regarding environmental tourism impacts (Liu et al., 1987; Mesch and Manor, 1998; Jutla, 2000; Terzidou et al., 2008). These studies reinforce the idea that while residents acknowledge the economic benefits of tourism, they are not always aware of the negative sociocultural and environmental impacts of tourism and their role in exacerbating these impacts (Dasgupta et al., 2006; Gursoy et al., 2004; Kamarudin and Nizam, 2013; Pohoaţă et al., 2013).

Within this thematic literature, however, very little has been written regarding how religion intersects with tourism and the environment (see Holden, 2003; Olsen, Chapter 2, this volume; Timothy, 2012), although some research has focused on spiritual experiences in leisure outdoor settings (e.g.,Heintzman, 2009, 2014).

Religion and the Environment

In their edited book entitled Religion and Environment, Tanner and Mitchell (2002, p. 53) provide a working definition of religion ‘as belief in a supernatural power or powers to be obeyed and worshipped and its expression in conduct and ritual’. They also define the environment as including ‘all the natural features of land, water, flora and fauna which supports human life and influence its development and character’. Tanner and Mitchell note that ‘the intensity of one’s experience of their own environment depends to a large extent on its relevance to their livelihood and [the] religious beliefs with which they approach it’. These religious beliefs, along with their associated religious activities, have both direct/indirect and spatial/temporal effects on the natural environment.

For example, at the level of belief, religion and religious teachings shape the views adherents have of nature. Tanner and Mitchell (2002, p. 209) note that ‘most religions view the natural environment as a harmonious unity, conceived by an external and transcendent mind’. From this perspective, Gardner (2002, p. 35), emphasises the traditional and important role of rituals, traditions, and religious institutions ‘in governing sustainable use of the natural environment’, as they act as ‘a sophisticated social and spiritual technology’ that helps mould the moral and ethical bearings of people, including ‘people [living] in harmony with the natural world’. Building on the intricate connections between nature and religion, several conceptual approaches regarding these connections have been developed, including bioethics, sacred environmentalism, and deep-ecology (Chandran and Hughes, 1997; Nelson, 1998; Saraswati, 1998; Sullivan, 1998; Apffel-Marglin and Parajuli, 2000; Chapple and Tucker, 2000; Dwivedi, 2000).

At a more physical level, the heightened intersection between religious values and the environment can be witnessed in places that are deemed important for the practice of religion. These are in many cases centres of religious faith that are considered sacred or deeply rooted in the human need for understanding their place in the cosmos (Jackson, 1995; Shackley, 2001; Tanner and Mitchell, 2002). The notion of the ‘sacred’ in relation to place can be conceptualized in two ways (see Olsen, 2019a). The first conceptualization, often referred to as the Eliadean (Eliade, 1959) or ‘ontological’ view of sacred space, posits that hierophanies or divine irruptions take place in a particular location, which makes this location the axis mundi for religious groups. At many sacred sites, religious leaders incorporate various elements of nature into a system of religious values, symbols, and religious rituals (Marshall, 1994; Chandran and Hughes, 1997; Narayanan, 1997; Prorok, 1997; Shinde, 2008). Places such as Mt Meru, Mt Kailash, and Mt Manasarovar, which are believed to be the abode of Hindu God Shiva, belong to this category of sacred places. In the other conceptualization, referred to as the ‘situationalist’ perspective, sacred sites are not an ‘ontological given’ (della Dora, 2015) but rather are defined as sacred through political, sociocultural, economic, and psychological processes. Sacred sites, therefore, are not sacred until someone or some group deems the site as sacred through a deliberate process of sanctification (Gottlieb, 2004; Bremer, 2006). As Tanner and Mitchell (2002, p. 122) note, ‘A sacred space is not normally extraordinary in its characteristics, it is made so by religious choice’.

Regardless of which view of how sacred space is created, the imbuing of mythological legends, miracle stories, and testimonies of the reality of divine forces within the physical elements in a sacred place contributes to the creation and maintenance of sacred geography. Often, these sacred places include a network of sacred sites linked to natural features, such as rivers, trees, and lakes marked by human-built shrines dedicated to certain deities and containing sanctified artefacts and objects. These sacred places, demarcated by religious groups by a sacred boundary to separate the sacred from the secular (Kong, 2001), become places where pilgrimage and other religious rituals are performed. This boundary in some cases also serves as a route of circumambulatory pilgrimage practices (Vidyarthi et al., 1979; Haberman, 1994; Singh, 1997). Thus, attributes such as ‘sacred’, ‘divine’, ‘religious’, and ‘spiritual’ become central to the environment of sacred places. These same sacred places also provide opportunities to cross from the material world to the divine world (Eck, 1981) and crossing is symbolized in pilgrimage travel to such places. Experiencing the ‘spirit of place’ at these sacred sites attracts both believers and non-believers, and in the process they become epicentres of pilgrimage travel. Pilgrimage, then, becomes the religious framework through which the sanctity of the place is made accessible.

Yet, important as the relationships between religion and the environment are, there is a paucity of literature discussing these relationships within the context of everyday and mundane issues related to tourism development.

Sacred Spaces and Places: Where Religion, Tourism, and the Environment Intersect

Pilgrimage and religious tourism destinations are places where the intersections between religion, tourism, and the environment are significant, heightened, and more readily observed. While there are thousands of places that faith traditions and individuals consider sacred, not all of these places become popular pilgrimage sites (Stoddard and Morinis, 1997; Tanner and Mitchell, 2002). This is because, as noted above, a sacred site is sacred because of the visitation and ritual practices of religious adherents and visitors, wherein rituals are invested with religious beliefs, meanings, and imagery, and institutionalised in the activity of pilgrimage (Bharati, 1963; Turner and Turner, 1978; Morinis, 1984; Nolan and Nolan, 1989). These rituals and the visitation of these sites reinforce the sacred nature of the sites to pilgrims (Bremer, 2004). This positive feedback loop leads to ‘visitors never doubt[ing] that they are experiencing a religious place, regardless of whether or not they share the religious proclivity of the place’ (Bremer, 2000, p. 423).

The Physical Reality of Environmental Impacts

Sites of pilgrimage and religious tourism have abstract, metaphysical, and ‘otherworldly’ aspects to their existence. At the same time, they are physical places that are inhabited and act as a destination for religiously motivated visitors. These visitors, as Shackley (2001, p. 54) wrote, ‘will have some impact, whether they wish or not’. Several scholars have discussed the many kinds of direct and indirect environmental impacts that occur in pilgrim-towns and within natural sacred landscapes due in part to religious tourism (Singh, 2002; Dasgupta et al., 2006; Shinde, 2007a; Terzidou et al., 2008; Verschuuren et al., 2010; Alipour et al., 2017). For example, based on observations in European cathedrals and churches, Shackley (2001) classified the direct impacts caused by visitors as deliberate (e.g. theft and vandalism), thoughtless (e.g. litter, pollution, noise), and accidental (e.g. abrasion of artwork or fabric in passing). These types of impacts are commonplace for religious buildings and natural landscapes that receive religious tourists (Nolan and Nolan, 1992; Swatos Jr. and Tomasi, 2002).

However, such impacts can be viewed very differently when considering religious tourism as an active religious practice, as is the case in many non-western societies. The scale of visitor impact is most evident in large gatherings around religious festivals, such as the Kumbha Mela,¹ a major pan-Indian pilgrimage event and the world’s largest gathering of Hindu devotees that at times has 120 million participants. As a part of the Kumbha Mela, pilgrims participate in ritual bathing in the River Ganga. With millions of people participating in this ritual bathing, several environmental impacts occur. For example, a report prepared by the Central Pollution Control Board in India summarizes the environmental impacts of such mass bathing:

Mass bathing is accompanied by mass defecation. Apart from that, the offerings of a plethora of materials – from ghee to flowers – are made to the river. This contributes high levels of organic matter to the river. As several infections are transmitted through water […] there are good chances that the bathers are infected by viruses and pathogens that cause diseases like typhoid, cholera, bacterial dysentery and jaundice (cited in Ahmed et al., 2000: para 20).

While this example of the Kumbha Mela may seem like a larger-than-life instance of the environmental impacts of religious ritual participation, the larger the group of participants in religious rituals, the worse the environmental impacts will be. Indeed, direct impacts are most visible at sacred destinations during festivals and events considered auspicious in religious faiths (Shinde, 2007a; Ruback et al., 2008). These occasions, which closely follow religious calendars, may take place on a single day or occur over the space of several days, weeks, or even months (Singh, 1997). The continual influx of large numbers of pilgrims, let alone religious tourists, puts a severe strain on basic services such as water supply, sanitation, and waste management at these destinations (Kaur, 2019). The physical environment is further stressed with soil and water pollution and the clearing of land for the creation of temporary accommodation facilities and amenities for pilgrims (Nagabhushanam, 1997; Basheer, 2003).

In many cases, religious rituals, as significant expressions of individual or collective piety, involve the use of different kinds of material offerings, as noted above, which offerings have great potential for causing or adding to already existent environmental pollution (Ruback et al., 2008). For example, many rituals in Hindu pilgrimage involve the sacrificial offerings of money and other material offerings, such as food and floral arrangements, and as pilgrims leave these religious offerings at sacred destinations they become material waste that further compounds the problem (see Shinde, Chapter 3, this volume). These additional waste pressures translate into unhygienic conditions and pose a major challenge for environmental sustainability (Sullivan, 1998; Sofield and Brent, 2001).

Changes in the seasonal nature of religious events have also exacerbated environmental impacts. It used to be that major religious festival occasions drew the largest influx of visitors and therefore the greatest intensity of environmental impact, while in between these major festivals smaller religious celebrations limited to local participation would occur with smaller environmental impacts (Picard and Robinson, 2006). However, not only have the number and frequency of these large religious celebrations and festivals increased (Shinde, 2007a, 2017; Shinde and Pinkney, 2013), in recent years, religious tourists have begun to visit these sacred destinations between the major religious festivals and events. As such, there are more people in these places for longer durations of time, meaning that the religiously-induced environmental problems that would normally be limited in scale and scope to these large religious events continue during the pilgrimage ‘off-season’. This creates a situation where the resilience of religious sites are severely tested, as there is not enough time for the natural and built environment, let alone the host community, to recover from the impacts of major pilgrimage events. Therefore, there is a persistence of negative environmental impacts for longer durations, leading to a lack of ‘seasonality’ that is often inherent in leisure tourism.

While the direct environmental impacts, as the examples above note, are directly related to the presence of visitors, indirect environmental impacts are induced in many ways by the types of development patterns experience within these sites. The most significant environmental change in sacred destinations is urbanization that is driven by pilgrimage and tourism development, within which two processes are evident. The first process is driven by the consumptive needs of pilgrims, religious tourists, and leisure-oriented tourists. The focus on ‘the consumption of pleasure’ in these destinations creates a ‘distinctive ecology, one evoking powerful images of pleasure – and this acts as a lure to [pilgrims and] tourists’ (Mullins, 1991, p. 340). This ‘distinctive ecology’ leads to the rapid growth of tourism infrastructure, including hotel accommodation and transportation systems, to service increased visitor flows (Kaur, 1984; Singh, 2002). Also contributing to this rapid growth are the creation of new commercial establishments and real estate development. As Melwani (2001) notes in the pilgrimage centre of Haridwar-Rishikesh,

Developers have constructed over 200 upscale apartment blocks, and many more are under construction ... Shivalik Ganga Estates in Haridwar uses the tag line: ‘Peace Unlimited. Plots Limited.’ Prices are upward bound − an apartment on the riverfront, which sold for US $25,500 4 years ago, now fetches $53,200. These luxury apartments may cost a bundle, but certainly the path to finding God was never easier!

As a part of this kind of new real estate development, there has been an increase in the purchasing of ‘second homes’ at sacred destinations (Shinde, 2008). The motivation to have a ‘second-home’ or a ‘spiritual retreat’ in ‘god’s abode’ is compelling for devotees who are able and willing to pay a lot of money to own a piece of a sacred landscape (Shinde, 2017). This strong driver of sacred ownership creates a major incentive for the establishment of speculative real estate development.

The second process relates to the inmigration of people looking for work within the pilgrimage/tourism industry. Many of those who come to sacred destinations looking for work are poor migrants from neighbouring rural areas and small towns. Most of these migrants end up living in informal squatter settlements in urban peripheries that have no infrastructure services, which contributes to degradation of these peripheral areas of pilgrimage centres (Dube, 1994; Nagabhushanam, 1997). In addition, the lack of a pilgrimage/tourism off-season also fuels the demand for additional pilgrimage/tourism services and infrastructure, and attractions, leading to the creation of new urban landscapes that affect the resistance and resilience of the natural and human-built environment as well as the necessary physical infrastructure (Shinde, 2017).

These parallel processes lead to ‘rapid population and labour force growth, a “flexible”’ labour market, a [change in traditional] class structure, [and] a different household and residential organization’ (Mullins, 1991, p. 340). As noted above, these processes also lead in many cases to the irreversible transformation of the sociospatial landscape of sacred destinations (Mullins, 1994; Gladstone, 1998), such as placing a higher than normal stress on the existing water supply system, sewage system, roads, and air quality (Varady, 1989; Srikrishna, 1994; Nagabhushanam, 1997; Trivedi and Agrawal, 2003). Thus, within growing sacred destinations, religious and leisure-oriented tourists seem to almost parasitically feed off the sacred core (Shinde, 2017).

Religious Perceptions of Pilgrimage and Religious Tourism Impacts

Many studies have found that visitors are often not concerned about their impacts on the natural or human-built environment in the sacred places they frequent despite being presented with evidence that they contribute to environmental degradation and unhygienic conditions (e.g. Alley, 1994; Sullivan, 1998; Haberman, 2000). Moreover, many of the physical environments within religious tourism destinations often present a stark contrast between the idealized sacral nature of the place and the reality of everyday living (Haberman, 2006). Turnbull (1981, p. 76) notes that in the case of Varanasi, while Hindu pilgrims perceive the city as the most beautiful and hallowed place in India, in reality the city ‘may forever remain merely one of the dirtiest’ for foreign visitors. Although more than three decades old, Turnbull’s observation is still valid, as Varanasi continues to be one of India’s most polluted yet sacred Hindu pilgrim-towns. In this vein, Tanner and Mitchell (2002, p. 125) point out that there is more to understanding the natural and human-built environments of sacred and religious places than through just scientific assessments and the quantification of environmental problems. They note that the power of these sacred places derives from their religious importance, and hence devotees are less inclined to focus on their degraded physical conditions or environment:

Religious experiences which come from arriving in the sacred space are not related to the glories of nature or cultural aesthetics ... Whether at Lourdes or at the Buddhist pilgrimage centre at Katagarama in Sri Lanka, there is little visible at the site to inspire the pilgrim ... The reason must be sought in the mind and heart of individuals rather than in the objective value of places themselves.

People’s perceptions of the environment are often shaped by cultural subjectivity. As Tuan (1974, p. 246) notes, ‘culture can influence perception to a degree that people will see things that do not exist’. To better understand place-based meanings, McDowell (1994, p. 154) suggests that it is necessary to analyse both ‘material practices and symbolic representations’. In this case, the issues and concerns around changes in the ‘religious environment’ can be raised regarding changes in religious and cultural traditions rather than problems related to the physical environment. Such articulation falls in line with McDowell’s (1994, p. 146) observation that ‘symbols, rituals, behaviour and everyday social practices result in a shared set or sets of meanings that are, to great or lesser degrees, place specific’.

For example, many pilgrimage sites are associated with natural features, including rivers, mountaintops, water bodies, and trees (Bhardwaj, 1997). Because these features are a part of a sacred geography defined by religious values and beliefs, in many cases they tend to be viewed from a religious perspective rather than in terms of their ecological functions (Eck, 1982; Gesler and Pierce, 2000, p. 222). Indeed, sacred places, even if they also function as a tourism destination, are not ordinary or secular environments, as they have undergone a process of sanctification and, as noted above, possess a ‘spirit of place’ that defines environment and identity. As such, while environmental change in these destinations may well be recognized and acknowledged, the followers of the faith for whom that sacred place is central and a manifestation of metaphysical views and beliefs may perceive this change differently. Both pilgrims and religious tourists therefore tend to overlook their role in the degradation of the environment (see Qurashi, Chapter 10, this volume), believing that their religious performances and positive economic contributions outweigh their impact (Terzidou et al., 2008; Shinde, 2011). This is also the case at times with local residents, who may place the blame for environmental impacts on sources other than pilgrims. Shinde (2011, p. 456) highlights this perspective in an interview he had with a young guru in Vrindavan, who stated: ‘Pilgrimage is a way to partake the spiritual energy of the place ... Visitors come with a religious belief and an emotional feeling ... How can they cause problems for the environment[?] ... What is a pilgrimage site without its visitors?’. Moreover, in pragmatic terms, visitors are critically important for maintaining the economy of the pilgrimage centre, and therefore residents may tolerate the negative impacts of tourism if it produces substantial economic benefits (Baedcharoen, 2000; Terzidou et al., 2008). Thus, environmental problems cannot be solely placed on pilgrims’ movement and actions, but is also based on perceptions about environmental degradation, especially when viewed through the lens of religion (Alley, 2002; Haberman, 2006).

Such perceptions, however, are not just theological or philosophical in nature, but are also generated through people’s experiences with sacred places and how they view those who visit and engage with these same sites (Joseph, 1994; Lochtefeld, 2010). For example, Shoval (2000) argued that the staging of religious rituals for tourist consumption effectively devalued and commodified the sanctity of the city. Shackley (1999) also noted that the manipulation of religious rituals in Nepal to cater to tourist itineraries not only devalued the religious rituals, but also made it difficult for locals to participate in their own religious heritage. Hobbs (1992) noted that at Mount Sinai, Egypt, the development of tourist accommodation and activities had altered the sacred nature of the mountain, both in and around the monastery. Hobbs argued that the pressure to cater to tourists has resulted in many of the religious rituals at the monastery being replaced by staged performances, diminishing the role of the monks who previously interacted with and provided religious guidance to pilgrims. These impacts led Hobbs to lament that ‘The physical, social and spatial requirements of caring for too many of the wrong kind of people—tourists—are weakening the fabric of monastic society at Mt. Sinai’ (p. 99, emphasis added).

Indeed, at many sacred sites, tourists are seen as the ‘wrong’ type of people who, by their mere presence, undermine the religious significance and sanctity of the site (Joseph, 1994; Joseph and Kavoori, 2001; Shackley, 2004; Aggarwal et al., 2008). In the Hindu pilgrim-town of Pushkar, Joseph (1994) notes that many traditional and orthodox religious communities consider both tourists and the religious intermediaries who have transformed puja (i.e. worship) rituals reserved for Hindus into commercial acts and touristic performances as actors that defile and pollute the sacred space. These communities also perceive the construction of hotels and tourist infrastructure as fundamentally altering the sacred landscape and the destinations’ sense of place. This view of tourists and by extension the tourism industry has led to the view that tourism is solely responsible for the high pollution levels of the nearby Pushkar Lake.

In this same vein, while tourist behaviour reflects a certain disregard for religious protocol and a more hedonistic attitude towards sacred places, pilgrim behaviour is seen as being determined by religious protocol and therefore reflective of a sensitive relationship and sacred tie to the pilgrimage site (Cohen, 1992; Olsen and Timothy, 2006). Vukonić (1996), in describing some commonly-held perceptions regarding pilgrims and tourists, notes that ‘The pilgrim steps gently on to holy soil; the tourist overruns holy places and photographs their remains. The pilgrim travels with humility and patience; the tourist travels arrogantly and in a hurry.’

Discourse, Materiality, and Management

The importance of understanding religious values as they shape perceptions about environmental problems in sacred places cannot be emphasized enough, particularly because they affect how sacred destinations are managed. The management of religious tourism sites has increasingly become an area of academic inquiry, highlighting the importance of quality visitor infrastructure and interpretational services as ways to minimize negative impacts on the natural and human-built environment (e.g. Olsen, 2006a; Raj and Morpeth, 2007; Zamani-Farahani and Henderson, 2010; Henderson, 2011; Shinde, 2012a; Bond et al., 2015). However, even the implementation of best practices in crowd management can be overwhelmed in instances where the scale and frequency of visitation is such that no amount of management and control can stop negative impacts from occurring.

Some scholars argue from a public administration perspective that the real problem is the absence of a strong formal governance structure focusing specifically on pilgrimage and religious tourism and its environmental impacts (van Der Veer, 1988; Alley, 2002; FoV, 2006; Shinde, 2011; Raj and Griffin, 2015). As Tanner and Mitchell (2002, p. 204) note, environmental management is ‘a political activity with little stress on religious considerations [,] even in states which are officially [claimed as religious] such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’. Also, religious views of pilgrimage and its (non)impact on the natural and human-built environment can lead to inconsistencies and disagreements over defining environmental issues, often leading to inaction by both government and religious authorities towards minimizing environmental impacts at pilgrimage and religious tourism destinations. Discussions regarding environmental change at pilgrimage destinations are often debated by contrasting the material reality of the environment with the abstract notion of sacred space. For instance, several scholars have noted the tendency of Hindu pilgrims and religious functionaries to compare the contemporary state of the environment of pilgrimage sites with a glorious past rooted in mythology or in the concept of transcendence (Haberman, 1994; Lochtefeld, 2010). This comparison relies on a fixed notion of the other worldly divine quality of sacred space that reinforces the sanctity of a pilgrimage site while outright ignoring the negative impacts of pilgrims and pilgrimage practices on the physical environment. This discourse of transcendence therefore produces conflicting views regarding who is responsible for managing the natural and human-built environment of a sacred place (Freitag, 1989; Alley, 2002). Religious actors often invoke tradition to justify their use of environmental resources for religious practices while claiming no responsibility for and management of its impacts. Such dissonance produces an environment of neglect and apathy, shifting the responsibilities of environmental management to government entities that may not have the financial or technical resources to do so (Shinde, 2011).

Following the ethical–moral perspectives and inherent teachings of many religious traditions regarding respect for nature, a few studies have found that religious institutions that place a strong ethic and concern on environmental stewardship are more effective at addressing environmental degradation at their sacred sites (Grim and Tucker, 1994; Sullivan, 1998; Apffel-Marglin and Parajuli, 2000). One illustrative example is the Vrindavan Conservation Project in India. Vrindavan is a pilgrim-town dedicated to the Hindu god Krishna and is believed to be Krishna’s recreational playground. As a part of this project, religious gurus have taken the lead to restore the forests in the name of Krishna and encourage other stakeholders to be more environmentally responsible (for more details see Prime, 2008; Nash, 2012; Chapter 4, this volume).

The Ecosystem of Religious Tourism: A Conceptual Model

The creation of a general theory regarding the intersections between religion, tourism, and the environment needs to move beyond the documentation of the environmental impacts of religious tourism which, although necessary, remains incomplete. In Fig. 1.2, the authors propose a simplistic conceptual model that can help understand the ecosystem of religious tourism that occurs in sacred places.

Sacred places are specific environments that connect elements of nature with sacred values using belief systems, mythology, cosmology, history, and culture involving religious faiths. The material manifestation of places imbued with such values generates a unique spirit of place and a natural, sociocultural, and physical environment. Both the physical and metaphysical nature of these places are articulated through religious frameworks and their meanings experienced through rituals and performances. As such, travelling to engage with the spirit of these places becomes the focus of religious tourism. Travel in and of itself becomes the cause of change in the physical and spiritual nature of these places. How the environment is impacted and changes depends largely on the nature of religious mobilities and the ways in which religious and governmental institutions mediate experiences with the sacred. This process is dialectical and leads to a continuous evolution of the people who visit, the people that live there, and the institutions that manage the place.

Fig. 1.2. A conceptual model of the relationships between religion, tourism, and the environment.

This theoretical model can be illustrated using a setting of a generic pilgrim-town. In this town, there are several institutions that interact with each other to produce and reproduce the ecosystem within which religious tourism operates. These institutions can be broadly classified into five groups, which are not exclusive of each other and can have significant overlap between them. The first, and probably most significant, includes leaders of religious establishments – the gurus, and the ritual priests that form the core of the pilgrimage industry and are central to the catering for the religious and spiritual wants and needs of pilgrims. These ‘religious entrepreneurs’ seek to establish and maintain relationships of patronage with individuals, families, or community groups that invest in religious buildings and charities and engage in ritual performances. Second, the pilgrimage/ religious tourism industry is also comprised of several people engaged in supplementary trades that provide goods and services to visitors. Their activities depend on broader socioeconomic processes and factors, such as the economic status of patrons and pilgrims, patterns of visitation, modes of travel, availability and types of transportation, and the frequency of travel, among others.

Third, residents form an important institution within this pilgrim-town. Although religious entrepreneurs and tradespersons may form part of this category, residents also include devotees and other social groups that may serve religious establishments and businesses or work in other sectors of an urban economy. The fourth group of institutions are those involved in the governance and maintenance of the pilgrimage-town. These institutions may include state agencies operating across different scalar levels, such as municipalities and state government departments, as well as other corporate religious bodies and civic associations that are often classified as non-governmental organizations (NGOs). One notable example of this is the Sathya Sai Baba Trust in Puttaparti in Andhra Pradesh, India, that was established in 1972 by a highly revered guru named Sri Sathya Sai Baba. This trust has contributed significantly to the building of infrastructure and environmental services in the town of Puttaparti. Consisting of more than 10,000 employees, the trust runs an independent university and implements charitable projects providing social welfare in the region. One of its much discussed environmental projects is the water supply project that it has developed in partnership with the state government and a private sector company to provide drinking water in 750 villages in the Andhra Pradesh state (Parthasarthy, 2002). The fifth institutional group are the pilgrims that visit the pilgrim-town. Depending on their economic status, some pilgrims may exercise substantial influence on the pilgrimage centre through their patronage of religious establishments and funding of charities, temples, and public services for fellow travellers. Religious tourists can also be included in this group because of their importance to the continuing economic growth of these destinations in both the religious and secular sectors.

The creation and growth of any pilgrimage site depends on the extent to which these institutions interact in a positive manner to reinforce the religious importance of the place. The ritual practices performed by religious intermediaries, the services and artefacts provided by supporting trades, and the symbolism of various religious events and festivals sustain the religious identity and sacrality of sacred places. But pilgrimage, as both ritual practice and economy, is not independent from the changes in the broader socioeconomic and political realm within which it occurs and is therefore likely to change and consequently transform the religious environment (Shackley, 2001). These changes, as noted above, may be visible in the reorganisation of ritual performances, changes in seasonal patterns of pilgrimage flows, and the characteristics of visitors and religious investments that both shape, and are shaped by, the physical and built environment of the pilgrimage centre. Transformations in the socioeconomic and physical environment of pilgrimage centres are also shaped by changing representations of religiosity, piety, and sacredness of the pilgrimage landscape. These representations are articulated by religious institutions through discourses that interpret the changing environment of pilgrimage in different ways. Some may invoke mythological stories or past traditions to criticize or challenge the changes occurring in the built environment, while others might claim that the degradation of the physical environment reflects moral degeneracy and defilement of the sacred site. Other still might embrace religious symbols to argue for the modernization of religious traditions and pilgrimage sites. Together, these competing discourses of change produce new institutional spaces and configurations for regulating, managing, and sustaining the material landscape and cultural symbolism of the place.

Chapter Contributions

This quick review of the existing literature around the key concepts of tourism, religion, and environment shows that while each of these areas has its own exploratory domains, the relationships between these concepts have received varying degrees of attention. Of these connections, tourism—environment relations have received the greatest amount of attention and yielded basic conceptual frameworks to understand these relationships. However, the role of religious values that influence both positive and negative impacts between tourism and the environment are largely missing. The connections between tourism and religion only sparingly discuss environmental aspects, and regarding the relationships between religion and environment, the appeal of nature and ethical calls for environmental stewardship are quite evident, but investigations into the actual interactions of the various aspects that underpin these relationships within the material world are still lacking.

The chapters included in this volume elaborate on some of the core aspects of this theoretical model presented in this chapter that views ‘the environment’ of pilgrimage as a dynamic process shaped by the activities, forms of control, perceptions, and representations of the actors involved in the production of sacred sites. Some chapters focus on the environment as a resource or generator for religious tourism, while other chapters discuss the environment as a recipient of impacts of religious tourism.

In addition to this introductory chapter, there are eleven contributions in this book. In Chapter 2, Daniel Olsen examines the relationships between pilgrimage, religious tourism, biodiversity, and natural sacred sites, and how religiously motivated travel to these sites affects the natural environment. After highlighting the views of nature by several major faith traditions, Olsen turns to examine how natural sacred sites are defined and categorises these sites into sacred mountains and volcanoes, caves and grottoes, water, trees and groves, and plants and animals. The author then notes some of the impacts of pilgrimage and religious tourism on natural sacred sites, and finishes by discussing attempts at different scales to maintain the sanctity and sustainability of these sites through governance frameworks that focus on the preservation of biodiversity.

In Chapter 3, Kiran Shinde engages in a comparison of six religious tourism destinations in India through the analytical categories of environmental processes, institutional responsibility, place attachment, and governance systems. In doing so, Shinde expands on the conceptual model in this chapter (Fig. 1.2) to provide a comprehensive explanation of the complexities of managing the natural and human-built environment at religious tourism destinations.

In Chapter 4, Joshua Nash focuses on how deeper and more philosophical experiences with sacred places, such as Vrindavan, India, can lead to the creation of human sanctuaries. Although present-day Vrindavan, which in popular mythological image is considered a celestial forest and divine playground of Krishna, is a city full of environmental problems, it still is the focus of spiritual teachings that build on the union of religion and nature conservation. In an almost biographical style, Nash expounds on the Vaishnava teachings and their relevance for conserving the natural environment as he learned them from his study with local Vrindavan ecologist Shri Sevak Sharan, who calls for practical action and contemplative practice (sadhana, chintan) using what he calls the Vrindavan Ecological Concept (VEC). Nash argues that this concept is powerful enough to inspire changes in thought processes and behavioural action that can create human sanctuaries everywhere in the world.

In Chapter 5, Sanjay Nepal, Yang Mu, and Po-Hsin Lai examine how local residents make sense of the sacred landscape of the Sagarmatha (Mt Everest) National Park (SNP) in Nepal’s Khumbu Region. From their fieldwork they report that Sherpas’ emotional and spiritual bonds with the landscape are reinforced through routinized contact with the sacred cultural features and consistent compliance with the rules of conduct. The authors argue that Sherpa residents’ objective recognition of the sacred landscape is influenced by geographical proximity to sacred sites, age of residents, and their religious backgrounds. Subjective interpretations of sacred landscape are also shaped by a strong awareness of behavioural restrictions, family influence and personal experiences. These strong bonds, however, are under threat as the religious influence of the landscape is diminishing with the shift of people’s economic dependency from the land to a consumer culture facilitated by tourism.

In Chapter 6, Anouk Lafortune-Bernard, Rajendra Suwal, Kai Weise, and Robin Coningham discuss the challenges for site managers at the Limbini World Heritage Site in Nepal, the birthplace of the Buddha. Since 1978, the Lumbini Master Plan has focused on ecological conservation and preserving the sanctity of the site in the face of increasing urbanization and tourism development in the area. The authors reflect on some of the difficulties in implementing the original plan, showing that the lack of integration of the Lumbini Master Plan with other local and regional plans has made it difficult to achieve the broader sustainable goals for the region.

In Chapter 7, Nour Farra-Haddad looks at interfaith pilgrimages in Lebanon where Christian and Muslims pilgrims worship at each other’s sacred sites. More specifically, the author looks at how the natural elements of these sacred sites, including trees, water, and stones, are utilized by pilgrims. In doing so, Farra-Haddad argues that the use of these natural elements in shared religious rituals acts as a catalyst for interfaith cooperation and experiences between different faith traditions in Lebanon.

The importance of understanding the sociopolitical contexts in which a sacred site is constructed is the focus of Josep-Maria Garcia-Fuentes in Chapter 8. Garcia-Fuentes discusses the building of the Sagrada Familia, a well-known Catholic expiatory temple in Barcelona. The author argues that its design and construction was symbolic of competing religious and political forces to use the mountain and shrine of Montserrat as a national symbol. This chapter situates the Sagrada Familia by Gaudí and its entangled relations with Montserrat within the reconceptualization of nature by the Catholic Church in a contemporary European context.

In Chapter 9, Daniel Olsen examines how the rigours of religious tourism and pilgrimage affect human health through a review of the literature related to the development and spread of infectious diseases by participants at pilgrimage/religious tourism mass gatherings. While some of this occurs because of the lack of hygienic facilities, the close proximity of religious travellers in sometimes small, confined spaces also exacerbates the rates of contraction and the spread of these diseases. The author also looks at the different types of infectious and non-infectious disease and other health risks that occur at religious mass gatherings with a particular emphasis on the Hajj. The author concludes with a discussion of how government, health, and religious officials are trying to mitigate the spread of diseases that originate from, and other health-related issues that occur at, these religious mass gatherings, highlighting the need for further research in this area.

Waste management, the most visible environmental problem for Hajj managers, is the focus on Jahanzeeb Qurashi’s chapter (Chapter 10). Even though the Quran is explicit in highlighting the importance of environmental stewardship and conservation, the areas in Saudi Arabia that host the Hajj – one of the most important tenets of Islamic religious practice – experience extensive environmental damage during the pilgrimage. This is in part due to the lack of controlled waste disposal, recovery, and recycling, as well as deficiencies in the country’s national waste management strategy. This chapter critically focuses on a number of key areas related to the Hajj and environmental damage, including how pilgrims and the hospitality and tourism industry affect the natural environment and how the government of Saudia Arabia is attempting to improve the environmental sustainability of the Hajj.

In Chapter 11, Michael Di Giovine and Elisa Ascione focus on the rebuilding of religious tourism sites after major natural disasters, as shown in the case of St Benedict in Norcia, Italy. The authors explore how different stakeholders have framed the role of tourism in the area and how touristic practices re-signify the value of places and their associated moral ideals after environmental disasters. While the clergy in the area have used recent earthquakes as a metaphor for redemption and renewal, tourists and other stakeholders have also affirmed their presence and experiences in the region as transformative for themselves and for the environment. The authors also emphasize how the necessary tearing down of important churches affects the region’s sense of place and social identity, and how efforts to rebuild these churches as well as the surrounding community have helped instil a sense of sacredness beyond the old core to the destination as a whole. In addition, the authors illustrate the dialectical effects of a double environmental transformation on sacred sites: how a natural disaster – unplanned and uncontrollable by social actors – affects the tangible and intangible fabric of a pilgrimage site and how those subsequent social interventions likewise influence religious tourism and its stakeholders as well as the wider environment.

In the final chapter, Daniel Olsen and Kiran Shinde summarize the major arguments as discussed in the preceding chapters and expand upon their proposed conceptual framework for environmental analysis in a pilgrimage place from Chapter 1. The authors also focus on the limitations of the book and suggest future avenues of research in the area of religion, tourism, and the environment.

Note

¹ The Kumbha Mela celebrates the victory of the gods over the demons in winning control over the pitcher or kumbha containing the nectar of immortality. According to myth, four drops of the nectar fell to earth during the battle, each landing in one of four religious centres: Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain, and Nasik. The Kumbha Mela pilgrimage, which takes place every 3 years in January-February, rotates between these four religious centres. Participating in the Kumbha Mela is regarded as a meritorious act for Hindus, and sadhus or wandering ascetics, religious gurus, and pilgrims from all over India and the world come to participate in the ritual bathing in the river on the day marking the mythical event. In 2019, more than 120 million visitors attended the Kumbha Mela at Allahabad.

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