Global Capital, Local Conservation, and Ecological Civilization: The Tiejia Ecology Temple and the Chinese Daoist Association’s Green Agenda

Abstract

<jats:p>Since 1995, the Chinese Daoist Association (CDA) has pursued a green agenda through the publication of declarations, statements and an eight year plan. This agenda has been aided in part by its engagement with global environmental discourse as mediated in particular by the Alliance for Religions and Conservation (ARC). Through its collaboration with ARC and a Dutch businessman, Allerd Stickert, the CDA built its first “ecology temple” in Shaanxi Province and convened its first ecological conference there. Analysis of these declarations and activities reveals an increasing globalization and juridification of environmental discourse in Chinese Daoist temples. In this way the issue of ecology presents further opportunities for the CDA, and by extension the Communist Party of China (CPC), to enhance their supervision of local religious activities.</jats:p>