title: Environmental sacredness and health in Palau.
abstract: The migration from Africa to the Pacific would take many millennia with ever changing environment conditions including the physical, social, spiritual and economics. Evolutionary metamorphosis from Neanderthals to Homo sapiens, through the Stone Age and Ice Age, the journey continued in sacred milieu that would protect this predestined journey out of the Garden of Eden. On the arrival to the final destination, a sacred gift called Uab (Palau), life would be guided with sacredness of the land, the sea, the skies and operational structures of a society that would survive through the test of time and conditions. This paper will examine how such sacredness is violated and how that has led to the erosion, exploitation and prostitution of the environment or lukel a klengar (nest of life). It will explore what it would take to reclaim some of the sacredness lost. The premise is that sacredness of Palau (Chedolel Belau) lost would mean a society lost.
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Health, Republic of Palau. skuartei@palaunet.com
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kuartei
mesh_terms: D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D004493:Education; D004782:Environmental Health; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D019029:Palau; D012067:Religion