Respect for the Earth is a common theme in many belief systems, as shown here through excerpts from the texts of five world religions.
Buddhism
Just as the footprint of any creature that walks the Earth can be placed in the elephant's footprint, which is the largest of all, even so mindful attention is the one quality that ensures ease of mind at all times.
Mindful attention causes beneficial thoughts that have not yet arisen to arise. It also causes harmful thoughts that have already arisen to vanish. In the one who is mindful, the good that is to be will be realized.
Anguttara Nikaya
Hinduism
Nature's beauty is an art of God. Let us feel the touch of God's invisible hands in everything beautiful. By the first touch of His hand rivers throb and ripple. When He smiles the sun shines, the moon glimmers, the stars twinkle, the flowers bloom. By the first rays of the rising sun, the universe is stirred; the shining gold is sprinkled on the smiling buds of rose; the fragrant air is filled with sweet melodies of singing birds, the dawn is the dream of God's creative fancy.
Rig Veda 1.6.3
Islam
It is He Who produces gardens, with trellises and without, and dates, and tilth with produce of all kinds, and olives and pomegranates, similar [in kind] and different [in variety]; eat of their fruit in their season, but render the dues that are proper on the day that the harvest is gathered. But waste not by excess; for God loves not the wasters.
Qur'an 6:141
Judaism
The cow and the bear shall graze,
Their young shall lie down together;
And the lion, like the ox, shall eat straw.
A babe shall play over a viper's hole,
And an infant pass his hand
Over an adder's den.
In all of My sacred mount
Nothing evil or vile shall be done;
For the land shall be filled
With devotion to the Lord
As water covers the sea.
Isaiah 11:7-9
Christianity
Praise the Lord from the Earth,
You great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
Lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
Stormy winds that do His bidding,
You mountains and all hills,
Fruit trees and all cedars,
Wild animals and all cattle,
Small creatures and flying birds,
Kings of the earth and all nations,
You princes and all rulers on Earth,
Young men and maidens,
Old men and children.
Psalm 148:7-12
