1. Introduction
In the western monotheistic traditions, nature has played a second role. The natural world has often primarily been seen as a set of resources for human utility. Simultaneously, these religious traditions contain scriptural passages and sustained practices in which we would now read a respectful view of the environment.
For instance, Judaism extended its notion of a covenant between the Creator and human beings to all creation. Christianity, in principle, sees the natural world as sacred, among Muslims there is the precept that the natural world belongs to God, not to humans [
1].
In the last decades, a vigorous debate has been undertaken between anthropocentrism, based on man’s benefit, and environmental stewardship [
2], between those who emphasise the role of nature created explicitly for man’s benefit, which has deteriorated the environment [
3], and others who enhance the role of stewardship [
4]. In these debates, two opposed positions emerge: one that denies that it would be possible that the Christian faith would contribute to nature’s protection, and one that finds in the Christian faith clear indications that it could take up inspired environmental responsibility [
5].
At the side of those in favour of Christianity-inspired stewardship, various authors have pointed out that some theologians have begun to find ways to connect the new call for ecological responsibility with passages from the Christian Scriptures [
6] stressing religiosity as a way to inspire environmental activism [
7] by expressing admiration towards nature [
8]. Smart [
9] gives a wide definition of how spirituality is, particularly related to faith commitment and its expression [
10], accepting as an expression of faith commitment after the pilgrimage. Northcott [
11] provides an excellent essay on different views about the existing link between the Bible (and Qur’an) and Ecology. In this line, Delio [
12] advocates the inseparability of the environmental and scriptural perspective of nature.
At the side of those who deny the connection between religiosity and environmental activism, it has been emphasised that the human desire to control nature has resulted in unprecedented environmental destruction [
13]. Interestingly, as Gardner [
1] has pointed out, since natural devastation has gradually gained relevance, the religious and environmental communities have expressly engaged each other on the agenda of religious and environmental leaders.
Then, leaders from different religions have taken seriously those who threaten nature. In fact, since the mid-1980s, Hindu leaders have been very active in protecting nature by releasing environmental statements. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as well as Pope John Paul II have openly pushed to analyse the human consequences on nature. Through these voices, religious leaders and believers have perceived the environment as something worthy of protection and preservation [
5] but the opposition between anthropocentric and ecological views of nature still remains. To overcome that traditional difference, religious leaders have stressed the principle of stewardship over the human dominion of nature, which, in turn, encourages individuals to be environmentally responsible [
14]. Have those environmental meetings and responsible statements over nature had any effect on the devoted faithful?
In the last decades, countless pilgrims daily make their way to the innumerable sanctuaries and shrines dedicated to Saint Mary to discover God’s ways or to undertake them anew, and to find peace of soul and consolation in affliction. Likewise, thousands of pilgrims come to sacred places to pray or express their faith and devotion. Religion and nature converge in faithful travellers in their pilgrimage towards sacred places [
15]. When they set off on a journey, nature and religion are intertwined everywhere, across rivers, mountains, hills, pastures, etc. In other words, travellers might find the connection between nature and divinity on their travels [
16]. Recently, an increasing number of people have found these religious paths to be the perfect setting for intimate experiences [
17].
One of the sacred places that have contributed to keeping the faith alive has been the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe (Spain). This Catholic monastery was one of the first pilgrimage centres in Europe [
18] and, since 1389, reverence for the Black Virgin has spread worldwide [
19,
20], so much so that it was declared a World Heritage Site by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO in 1993, (UNESCO World Heritage List) due to the outstanding historical value of the Monastery [
21]. It is settled in the heart of an environmental setting called “Villuercas-Ibores-Jara”. It was declared a UNESCO Global Geopark in 2011 for the beauty of this unique landform, characterised by structurally controlled morphological features responsible for the intensely folded and fractured landscape [
22].
Travellers express their religious attitudes in relation to nature along the path towards sacred places precisely within the context of these two well-known religious and environmental sites. So, religion continues to flourish and in many circles it is being revived as a source of ecological worldviews. Many religious leaders are also becoming more environmentally aware and have started to encourage pro-environmental behaviour [
1]. Those leaders have also recently recognised the need to develop their religious consciousness to emphasise their moral and ethical principles that support respect for the environment, their ecotheologies [
23,
24].
As some scholars have stressed, religious consciousness influences their ultimate control over their destiny [
25] and the individual’s action [
26]. Those actions related to nature are shaped by their religious consciousness, as well as legal and political ones [
27] (p. 138). In the case of pilgrims, the paper analyses if this religious consciousness has an impact on the way they relate to nature. Those environmental attitudes are closely related to environmental awareness [
28]. Some authors relate those attitudes to formative experiences [
29] or aging experiences [
30]. The goal of raising environmental awareness of the public can be improved, either it is understood as an end in itself or being translated into action [
31].
Sánchez García and Díez Sanz [
32] added another dimension that connects religiosity and environmental awareness, namely human development, which is understood to be the human ability to be involved in protecting nature. From the environmental psychology, scholars have argued that ecological goals and human development must be addressed in parallel [
33]. In this process has to be analysed not only the human values associated with the environment [
29] but also the environmental values as engendering environmental attitudes and behaviour to respect nature [
34,
35]. As some scholars have pointed out, the relationships between human values and environmental attitudes can predict the individual’s behaviour towards nature [
36,
37].
Then, the objective of the article is to study if “Religious Consciousness’ influences ‘Environmental Awareness’, ‘Human Development’, and ‘Improved Attitudes towards Nature’ amongst religious travellers. As Sarstedt et al. [
38] (p. 4002) has pointed out, through Structural equation modeling-Partial Least Square SEM-PLS Path Modelling, nonobserved variables related to focal concepts such as attitudes, perceptions, and behavioural intentions can be measured. PLS Path Modelling also works appropriately with complex variables among repetitive interactions and provides reliable explanatory and predictive information [
39].
In this work behavioural variables have been selected. They are Improved Attitudes towards Nature (IAN), Religious Consciousness (RC), the Sustainable Development of Nature (SDN) to protect the environment and the promotion of Environmental Human Development (EHD) through environmental education and activities.
The data has been drawn from questionnaires completed by pilgrims visiting the sacred monastery in Guadalupe between the months of July and September 2017. As the vast majority of the devoted attendees profess the Christian faith, whether they are Catholic or Protestant, the study addresses the research in the Christian domain.
The contribution of this paper is, therefore, twofold: (1) decipher how religious belief affects travellers’ environmental perception by exploring whether their religious consciousness towards that religious monastery positively influences the environment; and (2) ascertain whether travellers’ human flourishing plays a key role in protecting nature. Very little research has studied the connection between Religious Consciousness (RC) and these constructs in too much detail. This paper also introduces two novelties in this line of thought: (1) the analysis between Religious Consciousness and the environmental preservation of that revered place; (2) the influence of Religious Consciousness on Human Capabilities and developing respectful Attitudes towards Nature.
This paper is organised into six sections.
Section 1 introduces the study.
Section 2 describes in the literature review what religious consciousnesses means to visitors to sacred places assessing not only the environmental challenges travellers must face but also the human capabilities to be developed by pilgrims to respect nature.
Section 3 analyses the methodology.
Section 4 delves into the results.
Section 5 addresses the outcome of the study, and the discussion and finally,
Section 6 describes the conclusion and limitations of the paper.
5. Discussion
Due to the gradual increase of religious tourism, environmental paths receive many travellers crossing bridges, landscapes, pastures, etc., inevitably impacting on the ecosystem in one way or another [
79]. From this perspective, it is important to analyse how religious consciousness drives them to behave respectfully towards nature. In spite of some studies, difficulty has arisen to know if devoted believers can be more or less respectful to nature [
8].
Religious approaches of devoted Christians’ perception of nature were researched in the paper. As the results have shown, 75.6% of Religious Travellers’ Improved Attitudes towards Nature can be explained by the model presented. This means that not only does Religious Consciousness (RC) inspire devoted faithful to be more respectful to the environment, but also they agree with the sustainable measures proposed in the model for religious tourism through Sustainable Development of Nature (SDN).
The model also shows that environmental relationship provides travellers with the opportunity to achieve an authentic human development in nature by defining the human–nature relationship to attain a real sustainable development through Environmental Human Development (EHD). According to Chin and Newsted [
128], the model is strongly predictive. It can allow decision-makers to establish environmental strategies based on the effect of religious practices and allow pilgrims to develop human capabilities and attitudes to respect nature, by developing a common language between science and religion among religious travellers. On the side of religion, the model can help shape attitudes and action to develop a broader commitment to environmental protection and restoration [
63]. On the side of environmentalist, the model can also help to shape environmental attitudes to connect with religion [
71] to understand the world beyond everyday experiences [
59].
As a result, on one side, religious consciousness (RC) provides improved attitudes towards nature through Sustainable Development of Nature (SDN). It means that 43.1% of those environmental attitudes to respect nature are due to the influence of religious awareness on travellers’ environmental decision. Then, religion and spirituality can transform individuals to channel improved attitudes toward nature [
61,
62], by developing several sustainable measures to protect the environment. It explains that religious awareness helps pilgrims toward the Royal Monastery of Guadalupe to be more respectful to the environment, balancing the current concern of tourism authorities that travellers threaten nature [
91]. Those results shed light on other studies that produced opposite conclusions [
2,
51,
52,
53].
On the other side, Religious Consciousness (RC) provides improved attitudes towards nature through Environmental Human Development (EHD). It means that 32.1% of those environmental attitudes to respect nature come from Religious Consciousness. This human dimension plays a key role in defining the human–nature relationship to attain real sustainable development through Environmental Human Development (EHD), especially in pilgrims who visit the Real Monastery of Guadalupe [
107].
These human–nature relationships of Environmental Human Development (EHD) are important to protect nature in general, but also the Twelve Ancient Paths in particular by participating in national or international fora, teaching in communities, or being involved in local environmental activities to defend the environment. Paths modelling in the paper validate all the hypotheses. It means that within a 99.9% interval of confidence, the results express the very significant relationships in terms of variance among the constructs designed [
135]. Among the hypotheses, H
2 (β = 0.657; t = 11.306) and H
4 (β = 0.566; t = 8.255) are the strongest. Religious Consciousness (RC) strongly affects the Sustainable Development of Nature (SDN) and Environmental Human Development (EHD). Pilgrims strongly link religion with environment. Integrating respect for nature, either from the secular or religious side, has been the intention of religious initiatives over the past decades. Although results among tourists who visited the Royal Monastery through the ancient path of Guadalupe should be treated with prudence, they can also be interpreted as a shift in the Christian attitudes towards nature.
The religious and moral dimension of travellers has, therefore, become a key factor to promote respectful behaviour towards nature. These conclusions are well aligned with the Bible, which perceives the environment as something worthy of protection and preservation [
5]. As can be seen from the results, travellers on their way towards the sacred monastery in Guadalupe consider themselves stewards of nature, being entrusted with the environmental legacy they have received from the Divine Creator.
However, those results cannot be extrapolated to all religious travellers who visit the Royal Monastery of Guadalupe and other sacred places, such as Camino de Santiago, but they can lead us in the way of promoting environmental awareness among religious pilgrims. Even though this research is a push in the right direction [
106], the materialistic view of society pulled by an uncontrolled consumerism considers nature as a source for exploitation to their own benefit [
103]. That is why individuals can be humanised or dehumanised depending on their respectful or disrespectful approach to environment [
32].
The outcome of this research can guide Religious Travellers’ improved attitudes to face the environmental concerns of society positively in three different ways. First: Make the most of energy saving, treat the paper and waste [
98,
99,
100] in nature as you would at home. Second: Fight the culture of impulsive and wasteful consumption by making an effort to recycle resources [
101] and make a rational consumption of energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions [
102]. Third: Give value to each small effort individuals make in benefit of nature as little as it may be [
103,
104]. Results show a flourishing of human, by developing the religious consciousness to respect nature and natural environment, move hand in hand. This human dimension plays a key role in defining the human–nature relationship to attain real sustainable development.
The findings of this study help us to understand the factors that have the most significant effect on developing the Improved Attitudes towards Nature (IAN) spectrum through the mediation effect of Religious Consciousness (RC) on Improved Attitudes towards Nature. Through this mediation, Sustainable Development of Nature (SDN) or Environmental Human Development (EHD) sheds light on the sheer effect of exogenous variables (RC, EHD, and SDN) on endogenous ones (IAN). This paper also offers a new outlook to help design strategies to promote improved behaviour among Religious Travellers.
The bottom line of the study is that the indirect effect of Religious Consciousness (RC) on Improved Attitude towards Nature (IAN) through Sustainable Development of Nature (SDN) (H2 × H3) (0.657 × 0.356 = 0.233) is likely to increase Improved Attitude towards Nature (IAN) indirectly by 0.233. However, the total impact of Religious Consciousness (RC) on Improved Attitude towards Nature (IAN) increases to 0.509, calculated by adding the direct impact of Religious Consciousness (RC) on Improved Attitude towards Nature (IAN): 0.276 + 0.657 × 0.356 = 0.509.
Likewise, the indirect effect of Religious Consciousness through Environmental Human Development (EHD) (H4 × H5) (0.566 × 0.386 = 0.212) is likely to increase Improved Attitude towards Nature (IAN) indirectly by 0.212. The total impact of Religious Consciousness (RC) increases to 0.488, calculated by adding the direct impact of Religious Consciousness (RC) on Better Attitude towards Nature (IAN): 0.276 + 0.566 × 0.386 = 0.488.
Religious Consciousness (RC), therefore, influences Improved Attitude towards Nature (IAN) more positively by promoting direct education against environmental threats, by stopping the uncontrolled consumerism or saving energy and recycling (SDN) rather than organising indirect environmental training and educational activities by enhancing the involvement of Religious Travellers (EHD). However, both actions are necessary to protect the environment along the paths that end up in the Royal Monastery of Guadalupe.
As results, we have shown that RC influences IAN. In the recent context of religious leaders’ meetings, respect for nature is playing a relevant role. Through the religious leaders’ environmental agenda, important decisions have been taken but changes have to occur in the thousands of pilgrims who visit the sacred places daily. By cognitive, affective, motivational, and behavioural changes in pilgrims, improved attitudes toward nature can occur. Finding the connection between ecologist and religious leaders, environmental education can spread the commitment signed on International Environmental meetings about the thousands of pilgrims who frequently visit the sacred places in general and the Royal Sanctuary of Guadalupe in particular.
We would like to point out the following limitations of the study: First of all, the paper is dealing with intangibles such as Improved Attitudes towards Nature (IAN), Religious Consciousness (RC), the Sustainable Development of Nature (SDN) to protect the environment and the promotion of Environmental Human Development (EHD) through environmental education and activities. Moreover, Improved Attitudes towards Nature (IAN) can be understood from different angles and perspectives depending on the environmental background of each pilgrim who answer the questionnaire. Also, Religious Consciousness (RC) can be assessed differently according to the level of religious commitment of each pilgrim. Environmental Human Development (EHD) can be related also to social, psychological, and economic fields, so it would be fine to have explained in detail to every tourist the holistic meaning of that development.
The second limitation is that it is difficult to isolate the Religious Consciousness (RC) from other aspects to measure its effect on Improved Attitudes towards Nature (IAN). Those factors can be either personalised or generalised: the educational background, the uncontrollable growth of many cities which causes much pollution, the media and digital world; the new cultural and ecological trends in cultures, the group of interest whether they are based on economic, technological, or financial attitudes. All of those aspects can affect Improved Attitudes towards Nature (IAN) and indirectly the other variables explained in the model.
The third one can be the lack of successful experiences to highlight among pilgrims to compare, as a practical (not theoretical) example of achieving authentic human development in nature and its influence in their moral structure. Further research must be done in this regard.
Added to the last two aspects, in the fourth stage, we dare to say that this is the first research that analyses sustainable aspects that connect religiosity and nature. For this reason, ongoing work should be put into cautious view, as manifested in other touristic destinations.
Other limitations of this research can be found. The fifth limitation can be drawn from the questionnaires collected at the end of the pilgrimage journey’s stage. The data was collected in the summer of 2017. Under the circumstances, it would have been preferable to have collected the data throughout the year. It would have guaranteed more reliable and valid data collection. Future studies might explore pilgrims’ experiences during the year.
The sixth limitation refers to the environmental experience of nature that tourists had. Not all of the pilgrims came on foot through the ancients paths of the Royal Monastery of Guadalupe, some of them came by bus or car almost to the Monastery. So the experienced sensations over an enduring journey and the impact of nature on pilgrims were not the same. A prospective future study will overcome this limitation. This values further research about visiting the Real Monastery of Guadalupe through the Twelve Ancient Paths. Finally, it is critical for pilgrims to understand how to respect nature and contribute towards developing humankind by providing them with the appropriate skills to take the right decisions in what concerns nature.
6. Conclusions
Despite the religious awareness and the lessons we have been taught for centuries regarding living in harmony with the environment, little research has actually been conducted in the field of Religious Travellers to provide efficient tools to address the current environmental threats of nature or improve the human capabilities to protect the environment.
According to the results, Religious Consciousness (RC) positively influences Sustainable Development of Nature (SDN) and Environmental Human Development (EHD) with the aim of providing Religious Travellers with an Improved Attitude towards Nature (IAN). Travellers on their way towards the revered monastery in Guadalupe have internalised not only the inspiring behaviour drawn from the Bible, but also the affective and meaningful examples to look at nature as a creature to be respected. For these travellers, nature is a gift given by the Divine Creator that deserves to be treated with admiration.
This view makes it easier for travellers to act responsibly to protect nature through Sustainable Development of Nature (SDN). Travellers then undertake environmental measures to protect the environment such as: stopping the uncontrolled consumerism by avoiding unreasonable cost in public spaces compared to private spheres and raising individual awareness to be more environmentally responsible. Similarly, travellers’ religious beliefs help them be proactive in developing their human capabilities by participating in environmental fora, seminars, etc.
Even though the results do not reveal the type of mediation between Religious Consciousness (RC) and Religious Travellers’ Improved Attitude towards Nature (IAN), it is essential to highlight that the total effect over Sustainable Development of Nature (SDN) and Environmental Human Development (EHD) is quite high. This is something that will be analysed in further research nonetheless. Presumably, Religious Consciousness most likely mediates other constructs.
Concerning explained variance, Sustainable Development of Nature (SDN) alone explains 43.1% of the total information provided in the model. In other words, if this construct were the only one within the model, the variance explained (R2) would have been “moderate”. Therefore, for Religious Travellers, their belief alone would almost suffice to address the environmental side. Likewise, Environmental Human Development (EHD) explains 32.1% of the total information. Human flourishing is also a strong factor to develop Improved Attitudes towards Nature.
Based on the predictive model, both constructs move together. Environmental and human aspects are aligned simultaneously. In other words, the ecological approach to nature is intertwined with the social approach.
Notwithstanding the methodology applied to provide consistent results among religious tourists who visited the Royal Monastery through the ancient path of Guadalupe, the findings should be processed and understood with caution. Ongoing studies should be put into cautious view, as manifested in other destinations, such as the Way of Saint James. The contrasted findings should be compared with the new ones.
Regarding questions included in the questionnaire, they were previously validated in some personal interviews with key informants. However, we think that in future surveys more efforts should be made in order to standardise how the questions must be formulated and to make a classification based on typologies of pilgrims (means of transport, excursion trips, etc.).
All these abovementioned limitations will be overcome in further research about religious travellers to the revered monastery in Guadalupe.