Religious symbols have no set definition as they are interpreted and reinterpreted across time and place. Not knowing and understanding religious symbols could be the cause of the worst exploitation of nature. “The devaluation of nature has been driven to a large extent by an economist who reduces symbolic knowledge to the markets of materialism. Therefore, nature is seen primarily as an object of human use and exploitation” (34). A better understanding of how nature and ecology work allows humans to recognize the symbolic and biological interdependence between the two. For example, each bioculture symbol (air, earth, water, and fire) has a unique meaning, such as orienting, rooting, nourishing, and transforming, respectively. The combination of these four symbols is the foundation of religious ecology, “ways of orientation and grounding through which human beings, recognizing the limits of phenomenal reality and the suffering inherent in life, undertake specific practices to nourish and transform themselves and their community in a particular cosmological context". who considers nature as intrinsically precious”