Pauline Ecology and Sustainable Environmental Development of the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

Abstract

Sustainable environmental development can only take place in the context of a peaceful, secured and beneficial environment. The increasing concern about environmental issues in Niger Delta region of Nigeria provides the basis to biblically construct sustainable pro-environmental behaviour. Therefore, the paper contextually interrogates Pauline ecology, and synthesizes it with the environmental issues of the Niger Delta using the personal agency variable of the social cognitive theory of pro-environmental behaviour. Pauline ecology affirms that the redemptive act of God in Jesus Christ, which is the restorative re-creation of the entire universe, is integral to ecological balance. In essence, human and non-human components of the environment are headed for transformation, and not for destruction. Therefore, Pauline ecology impinges responsibility on the human components of the environment to take conscious action to foster sustainable, climate-healthy and nature-changing activities in and on the environment of the Niger Delta.

Keywords: Pauline ecology, Sustainable environmental development, Redemption, Creation, Niger Delta