Conservation movement
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The Conservation movement seeks to protect plant and animal species from harmful human influences.
It is distinct from the contemporary environmental movement which had anti-political goals and was more closely associated with indigenous peoples. However, the two have grown together in modern times, as the Sierra Club and Audubon Society have come to reflect the broader ethics of a more diverse society.
It continues to admire and use nature, and assign it varying ethical significance. Today it is more correct to say that there is no clear distinction between the conservation movement and environmental movement but rather a distinction between these and the ecology movement which gave rise to such strongly political groups as Greenpeace and the Green Parties.
Religious influence
Conservation as such has historically been associated with religion - Zoroaster, Tao, and Islam (hima) in particular - but only in the 19th century became explicitly associated with Christian morality, which was formed in part in opposition to Pagan nature worship.
For some, conservation during the 19th century invoked Christian reverence for the Creation to protect natural habitats from man. They lobbied consistently for parks and human exclusion from "the wild". They saw humans as apart from nature, in line with Judeo-Christian ethics of the time, and believed that an awe of biodiversity (as we call it today), would inspire religious piety.