At the end of January 2014, Indonesia’s powerful Islamic council of scholars, the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI), announced the first ever ‘biodiversity fatwa’ (edict). The fatwa highlights the core principles, beliefs and texts in Islam that relate to conservation and asks all Muslims to safeguard biodiversity, particularly threatened species like the tiger and rhino.
The Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI) visited Rimbang Baling Nature Reserve that will be use for the training in 2013.
This edict represents an enormous shift in how Quranic teachings relate to the natural world: from now on there is no doubt that conservation principles are embedded within Islam. In Indonesia, one of the most important education institution that may carried out a long term influence to the education is the Islamic Boarding School (Pesantren). By involving the pesantren communities, we will be the change in conservation effort in Riau especially in Rimbang Baling as well as helping WWF Conservation Goals such as:
- Increasing understanding of the connection between Islam and wildlife conservation amongst Muslim leaders, teachers and students of 30 pesantren around the Rimbang Baling reserve in Riau province, Sumatra.
- Muslim leaders and educators empowered with the tools and training needed to spread awareness in protection of the tigers as well as will contribute over all the WWF goals, in zero poaching and double the number of wild wild tigers in Rimbang Baling Area.
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