Hawzah News Agency-A Wisconsin researcher said many Muslims are taught to respect nature as God's creation and to protect the planet.

Marquette University Assistant Professor Jame Schaefer directs the school's environmental ethics program and said she has looked at how several religions approach ecological issues. She told the North American Congress For Conservation Biology in Madison, that like many faiths, Islam has a connection to protecting the earth.

"They have a very strong incentive to protect God's creation because it's through the Ayat, the world itself, the visible world, that they can experience God and know about God. So this is a strong incentive on their part to not only study science, but to protect the world, which is their responsibility as God's trustees," she said.

Schaefer is working on a project to bring together biologists and religious communities, in part to make it easier for scientists to do more research on certain lands and species to which the researchers have not had access.