Peter and his late wife Miranda founded A Rocha, a family of conservation organizations in over 20 countries working together to live out God's calling to care for creation, in 1983. The A Rocha story is told in Peter’s books, Under the Bright Wings and Kingfisher’s Fire. A Cambridge graduate and Anglican minister, Peter has served as Adjunct Faculty at Regent College, Vancouver and Au Sable Institute, Michigan. Since losing Miranda in a car accident during a work trip in South Africa in 2019 he has continued to support the growth of A Rocha around the world and to explore possibilities for innovative financing of conservation projects through investment and philanthropy.
Each set of convictions addresses the same reality. So it shouldn’t be surprising that a recent insight within ecology aligns beautifully with the foundational biblical perspective that human beings have the God-given responsibility to care for all creation.
Every species on earth has its ecological niche, where it can find resources to meet its needs. We humans are able to live in almost any of this planet’s ecosystems. As we have succeeded, so we have moulded the planet to our specific needs. Does this mean that we are some kind of planetary super-predator, and have no ecological niche? Or, does it suggest that whilst we may call ourselves Homo ‘sapiens’, we are failing to be wise?
In The Matrix, Agent Smith says, “Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague.” The idea of humans as a virus species is becoming increasingly widespread. No part of the planet is left untouched as we swarm over it, multiplying, polluting, consuming, destroying. Yet most Christians react in horror at the idea. Surely we are ‘made in the image of God’?
