Kayla Scherrer
UNIV 112
2 November, 2015
Research Question: How has scientific enlightenment promoted secularism and the loss of
religious culture?
MLA Citation: Baker, Lynne, Oluseun Olubode, Adebowale Tanimola, and David Garshelis.
"Role of Local Culture, Religion, and Human Attitudes in the Conservation of Sacred
Populations of a Threatened ‘pest’ Species."Biodiversity and Conservation 23.8 (2014): 1895909. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.
Background: The authors of this article set out to investigated the impact on the sclater monkey
population as a result of a decline in the indigenous religions in that area that use to protect these
monkeys. Sclater monkey have been known to be deities in certain religions thus explaining why
their presence was tolerated for so long, but as these indigenous religion continue to shrink will
the sclater monkey population too? One of the authors David Garshelis is a research scientist at
the Minnesota Department of Nature Resources where he and other researchers study
“conservation related issues in Asia and South America”. Whereas “Biodiversity and
Conservation” is a scientific journal issued internationally that analyzes biodiversity and its
impact around the world.
Main Claim: Indigenous religious communities are threatened by religious conversion by main
stream religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc.) therefore resulting in a loss of culture and a
decrease in biodiversity.
Sub Claims:
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The impact on the sclater monkey population as a result of a decrease in biodiversity
Sclater monkeys are disrupting the increasingly secular communities around them and are
beginning to be perceived as pests.
The environment surrounding the previously dense indigenous communities are impacted
as well as the number of forests in Nigeria have been reduced to small patches.
Indigenous Communities and their practices involving nature and their environment.
Studying the ways of the Akpugoeze and Lagwa and how they worship these monkeys
and the nature around them.
Evidence:
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Monkeys are found in and around homes. “Anti-monkey responses were more common
in Akpugoeze (73 %) than Lagwa (46 %)” (Baker 1900).
 Show how they are a part of everyday life for these people and if they are no
longer protected by these religions then their population may subsequently
decrease as they would no longer be worshiped instead of seen as pests.
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Shrines are dedicated to these monkeys as they are seen as deities. “Only eight
respondents claimed to be adherents of the traditional religion and because religion was
correlated with other variables, such presence of a household shrine (v2 = 63.18, df = 1,
p\ 0.001)” (1899).
 These indigenous religions worship these monkeys as would a Hinduist would
worship Ganesh (the elephant), therefore the killings of these monkeys would
severely harm/ impact these indigenous communities as their gods would be
hunted for game.
Monkeys are generally unharmed in sacred groves, however they are decreasing in
numbers, “averaging 2 ha in Akpugoeze and 0.5 ha in Lagwa; Baker et al. 2009” (1897).
 As missionaries continuously seek out to convert others to their religion, they also
impact the number of indigenous communities that inhabit that area. Therefore
with these conversions one can expect that there would be less sacred groves for
these monkeys to reside in the future.
An experiment was conducted in these two indigenous religious communities on whether
they would prefer a community without or with the monkeys.
 This experiment concluded that more than half the population (59 %) would
prefer a community without the monkeys, however 62% said they could tolerate
them. This thus signifies the shift in spiritual attachment to these sacred monkeys
as previously seen in other generations.
Important Quotes:
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“The adoption of Christianity by indigenous societies has been often cited as leading to
the erosion or loss of environmentally friendly beliefs and practices associated with local
religions, such as the protection of sacred streams and forests or species through hunting
taboos” (1895).
 This is shown above in the evidence explaining the decline in the acceptance of
the sclater monkeys in these previously indigenous communities. More than half
of the communities said they would prefer if the monkeys were elsewhere thus
supporting the de-enlightenment theory in which indigenous beliefs and other
religions will soon become extinct due to new modern behaviors.
“In two Igbo communities, social taboos protect Sclaters monkey from being killed or
eaten; these taboos are linked to indigenous religious beliefs and local folklore” (1896).
 Although there are taboos about the monkeys it does not seem to be enough as the
previous beliefs about the monkeys seem to be disappearing with time. Thus what
will happen in a few more years? Will these taboos be gone, or will they continue
for a few more generations until this indigenous religion dies out or adapts to
modern society.
“Populations protected in this way are often considered under threat due to religious
conversion” (1896).
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 As missionaries flood into third world countries the number of indigenous
religions decreases as they convert numerous of people to their religion. Therefore
losing bits of culture and biodiversity in the process.
“We thus expected that both crop raiding and religious change would negatively affect
people’s opinions of the monkeys and may result in increased persecution in the future”
(1898).
 This quote was later proven in the article as they discovered those within the
communities that protected the monkeys did not really enjoy the monkeys
presence either as half of them said they would not mind if they were no longer
there. Instead they see them as pest who eat their crops and destroy their
properties.
“Based on the individually significant models, the odds of preferring the presence of
monkeys was lower for non-indigenes, residents who attended more church services, and
residents who received most of their income from farming” (1900).
 This explains the more than half the population not wanting to live with the
monkeys anymore. Those whom prefer not to have monkeys in the communities
tend to not follow the religion or are farmers whose crops get destroyed by their
presence. However those who are no longer part of the indigenous religion were
they converted or never a part of it?
Usefulness:
This article is very useful because it contains a lot of facts about the evolution of indigenous
religions and how biodiversity is decreasing in these communities. Also it shows how behaviors
have changed over the years and also conducted an experiment to test if biodiversity was actually
affected in this community, which it was.