Regarding preservation of the environment, there is always an active involvement of the community folks. Start on their cultural beliefs and practices. Do not insist our own. From there, infuse the best ways you can influence your thinking. But this can be done in a calculated risk.

Some religious beliefs (catholicism for example), by putting Man in the center of the attention, might be considered detrimental to nature conservation because nature is at Man's disposal (e.g. "Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth" Genesis)

In general, a common framework of understanding (beliefs, knowledge, representations, etc) is thought to be in favour of action towards conservation (Mathevet et al. 2011, Brugnach et al. 2011).

Uncertainty in people's belief of how the natural system works is detrimental to collective action (exemple of the climate change (Barrett & Dannenberg 2013)

In general, in traditional societies, cultural practicies are usually resource-friendly because otherwise it would directly challenge their survival (e.g Ostrom 1990). In modern societies, it is more complex to assess as there is so much diversity of world views and cultures. The role of belief (and moral reasoning towards nature) on resource management as been interstingly apporached by Meyer & Braga 2009 using Grave theoretical framework on the dynamics of value systems.