Conserving the Sacred Medicine Mountains: A Vegetation Analysis of Tibetan Sacred Sites in Northwest Yunnan

Abstract

Mount Kawa Karpo of the Menri ('Medicine Mountains' in Tibetan), in the eastern Himalayas, is one of the most sacred mountains to Tibetan Buddhists. Numerous sacred sites are found between 1900 and 4000 m, and at higher elevations the area as a whole is considered a sacred landscape. Religious beliefs may affect the ecology of these sacred areas, resulting in unique ecological characteristics of importance to conservation; recent studies have demonstrated that sacred areas can often play a major role in conservation. The goal of this study is to preliminarily analyze the vegetation of sacred areas in the Menri region using existing vegetation maps and a Geographical Information System (GIS) for remote assessment. Sacred sites are compared to random points in the landscape, in terms of: elevation, vegetation, and nearness to villages; species composition, diversity, and richness; and frequency of useful and endemic plant species. Detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) ordination reveals that sacred sites differ significantly in both useful species composition (p=0.034) and endemic species composition (p=0.045). Sacred sites are located at lower elevations, and closer to villages, than randomly selected, non-sacred sites (p< 0.0001), and have higher overall species richness (p=0.033) and diversity (p=0.042). In addition, the high-elevation (> 4000 m) areas of the mountain -a sacred landscape -are found to have significantly more endemics than lowelevation areas (p<0.0001). These findings represent an initial analysis of sacred sites and suggest that sacred sites in the Menri region may be ecologically and ethnobotanically unique.

Tibetan Sacred Sites: Understanding the Traditional Management System and Its Role in Modern Conservation

“…Tibetan sacred sites, as a form of Community Conserved Area (CCAs; Oviedo 2006, Smyth 2006, have been effectively protected by local people and function to protect threatened species, biodiversity, and ecosystem services (Anderson et al 2005, Zou et al 2005, Salick et al 2007, Xiang et al 2008. In terms of access and utilization, Tibetan sacred sites were comparable to several IUCN protected area categories (IUCN 1994): Forbidden areas and sacred lakes with strict prohibitions are analogous to Category I (Strict nature reserve and wilderness areas); sacred mountains could be allocated into Categories II (National park), V (Protected landscape), or VI (Managed resource protected area), depending on how strictly the traditional regulations are executed; and monasteries and sacred relics are consistent with the definition of Category III (Natural monument).…”

“…The significance of Tibetan sacred sites in conservation centers on their widespread distribution (Xu et al 2005, Shen et al 2007) and their function in conserving both mature forest (Zou et al 2005, Salick et al 2007, Xiang et al 2008) and threatened species (Anderson et al 2005). Nevertheless, our knowledge on the spatial distribution and management of Tibetan sacred sites is still poor.…”

“…Previous studies are mostly conceptual discussions on the relationship between cultural practices and environmental protection (Li et al 2008). Field-based studies focused on measuring biodiversity within Tibetan sacred sites (Anderson et al 2005, Zou et al 2005, Salick et al 2007, Xiang et al 2008 and not management structure.…”

Holy Hills Role in Biodiversity Conservation and Mountain Management: Implication of Multi-Purpose Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church in Sustainable Mountain Conservation

“…This confluence of ecotypes results in extraordinary biodiversity in mountain region is one of the global hotspots [62,63], examined the relationships among sacred sites, elevation and vegetation with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and indicated that sacred sites are found to have more species and diverse habitats than randomly selected non-sacred sites. and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit….…”

Tibetan medicine: a unique heritage of person-centered medicine

“…While research has been conducted covering the ecology and botanical strengths of Tibetan regions [15,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29], it is important to study more deeply into the pharmaceutical potentials of such materials. A large amount of research is centered around finding active constituents within specific Tibetan medical ingredients [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41].…”