Religious push for conservation

A conservation conference is getting underway in Nepal to enlist the world's major religions in the battle to save the environment.

Delegates from 33 countries representing eleven major faiths are taking part in the conference which has been called Sacred Gifts for a Living Planet.

Twenty-six initiatives are due to be unveiled, among them restoring sacred forests in India and reinstating a Buddhist hunting ban to help protect Mongolia's endangered snow leopard.

The president of the World Wide Fund for Nature, Claude Martin, said the conference would reach out to huge new constituencies among the billions of people represented by the 11 faiths.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service