“It takes a village”: botanical garden brings faith groups together to tackle environmental crisis 

When Camille Yabi led a study on religion and the environment in his home country of Benin, the results were far from encouraging: “More than 75 percent of evangelical church leaders we surveyed were not interested in environmental protection,” explained Camille, a geography PhD student and an LCI “Catalyst.”  

As part of an Logos and Cosmos Initiative-funded project, Camille and a group of six students from the IFES national movement conducted fieldwork in 2023 in the Coline department (county) in central Benin. They found that creation care was missing from the church’s teaching and actions. Some churches had cut down all the trees on the plot surrounding their buildings while others had deforested entire areas of their cemeteries.  

This lack of environmental care was alarming to Camille as he knows it is so urgently needed in Benin. This West African nation is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change (World Bank, 2023). Under a 2.7°C global warming scenario, by 2070, 98 percent of its territory is expected to be exposed to extreme temperatures.  

Reducing deforestation has been identified as an important way to mitigate the effects of climate change. Benin’s forests support essential ecosystem services, harboring biodiversity, regulating climate through carbon sequestration, providing clean water and controlling soil erosion. Forests also provide food and medicinal plants. But they are disappearing fast. (World Bank, 2020; World Bank, 2023)   

“Christianity in the project area has an exclusive tendency according to some dignitaries of endogenous religions,” shared Camille. “Interviews in the community revealed that Christians did not agree to collaborate with other religions on common community concerns such as the environment. Church leaders encourage their members to separate themselves from their culture and their parents’ ways of doing things.” 

This lack of collaboration was a missed opportunity as Christians stood to learn a lot from other faith communities. The Traditional African Religions (TARs) in the area have experience of setting up sacred forests to protect biodiversity while allowing the sustainable use of plants for medicinal uses. And the local Catholic church has established green space and an orchard on its property, providing shade and protecting the soil from being degraded by water running off the hillsides.  

Remarkably, just two years on from his initial fieldwork, Camille has found a way to encourage Christians to work together with others to protect the environment.  

All hands on deck at a new botanical garden 

Dialogue and knowledge sharing for the good of the community   

The garden project has involved liaison with and guidance from the Forestry Administration, local traditional healers and pastoralists, and the village chief. It has also been the focal point for inter-religious dialogue meetings between Protestants, Catholics and TARs. 

“Indigenous dignitaries have been very open to dialogue and sharing their knowledge,” Camille reported.  

On almost 6 hectares (14 acres), the botanical garden will preserve existing endangered plants and the team have planted almost 300 new endangered plants and around 1000 peach and eucalyptus trees to help create a boundary for the garden. The garden includes medicinal species such as African Mahogany (Afzelia africana), the bark of which is often used to treat digestive problems and for pain relief and the white-flowered Kapok tree (Ceiba pentendra), whose bark can be used to as a diuretic and to treat headaches and type II diabetes.  

“Medicinal plants will be made available to the community to treat all kinds of diseases but with well-regulated access based on the needs of each visitor,” shared Camille. 

The site has already been used as a space for educational field trips for students from the national movement who have spent time studying what the Bible says about creation care using a series of study guides designed by Camille as part of his project. There are also plans to partner with the nearby University of Dassa to facilitate academic field trips for students. 

“We have learned that it is really important to take students into the field – rather than a classroom – to help them get in touch with the natural environment and motivate them to care for it,” said Camille. 

Answering the call for multi-sector collaborations 

The multi-sector collaboration that Camille has achieved is exactly the type of approach experts have been calling for to help communities tackle “wicked problems” such as the environmental crisis and climate change. The project is an example of the sort of university-community partnership highlighted in this January 2025 article by the international NGO and think tank, The World Economic Forum.  

In addition to being an environmental and community project, Camille’s project also has an academic element. As part of an “action research” approach, he will share his results in several academic articles, incorporate them into his geography thesis, and help student volunteers to write their own articles about the project.  

Once Camille’s LCI-funded project comes to an end this year, the national movement is committed to working with community partners to continue to manage this new resource.