Stewards are called from a wide range of spiritual traditions to undertake the task of preserving the biosphere for the sake of future geneations. Artifacts can be preserved by separating them from every day life in the way that a painting can be preserved locked away in a museum, but the preservation of life and the living isn't achieved so easily. For example, heirloom seeds can be saved, but seeds need to be planted and new seeds grown every few years in order to maintain viability.
A person embarks on the path of Stewardship when they recognize within themselves a personal sense of responsibility for the ongoing welfare of the world around them. Stewardship is not about seeking control or dominion; instead, it's about seeking an understanding of the natural environment and using that knowledge to facilitate positive outcomes.
Stewardship involves an ongoing search for a true understanding of how natural processes interact to create the dynamic world we experience. This knowledge quest is important because we can not facilitate a process which we don't understand. Today we have an unprecedented amount of knowledge regarding how natural systems work, and consequently an unprecedented opportunity for stewardship.
Stewardship is an integral part of many spiritual paths. For example, a Christian basis for Stewardship is laid out in Matthew 25:14-30, and a Native American basis for Stewardship is expressed in the Great Law. Similarly, the Dalai Lama has described a Buddhist basis for Stewardship, and Islamic scholars have asserted that a pro-active practice of Stewardship is an essential component of Islam.
Historically, many have seen the relationship between humankind and nature as adversarial, but that time is clearly past; today, we need to find ways to collaborate with nature in order to preserve its ability to sustain life. For the past two centuries, humans have lived off a vast inheritance of natural wealth, but the Age of Dominion is passing away; the old growth forests are gone, the great schools of cod are fished out, the aquafiers are being pumped dry. Soon, humankind will have to learn how to live solely on the things we create and the things we recover. Either we will transform ourselves into good and faithful stewards of nature's bounty, or we will pass away.
Stewardship, at its heart, is the ongoing, hands-on search for harmony with other people, with other forms of life, and ultimately, with the entire biosphere. In order to be effective Stewardship must be founded on sustainable practices that focus on creative principles‒it is both a living practice and the practice of living.
The call for Stewardship flows from the understanding that only the cultivation of sustainable practices will ensure and enrich our future. And therefore, the Steward's quest is to search out sustainable practices that use knowledge gleaned from nature to create working models which function as an integrated part of nature.
Whether or not humans heed the call for embracing the role of Stewardship, nature will ultimately produce sustainable systems. The question that remains to be answered in the coming years is whether humanity will play a positive role in that process, or become its victim.