Sacred groves: potential for biodiversity management

Abstract

Existing global protected area networks have two shortcomings: (1) they do not cover certain habitats, and (2) local people often resent their formal management. Here, we show that communities around the world traditionally protect natural sites that are dedicated to ancestral spirits or deities. Such sites cover a wide variety of habitats and are often located in biodiversity rich regions. Case studies on sacred groves show that these small forest patches play an important role in biodiversity conservation. Furthermore, natural sacred sites are maintained through traditional methods of community based conservation that do not require governmental involvement. Incorporating these sites into conservation networks could enhance the effectiveness of protected areas by covering a wider variety of habitats and by harnessing the support of local people. In this article, we discuss current threats to sacred groves that need to be addressed through management approaches. More research on the ecology and underlying socioeconomic mechanisms of natural sacred sites is required to fully reveal their potential for biodiversity conservation.

Conservation of the Ethiopian church forests: Threats, opportunities and implications for their management

“…43 woody species in Menagesha forest and 66 woody species in Hugumburda forest, both Juniperus-Olea forest with some scattered Afrocarpus) (Demissew 1988;Aynekulu 2011). These results highlight that Ethiopian church forests, much like other sacred forest sites in the world (Bhagwat and Rutte 2006), are important for regional forest biodiversity conservation, but also that there is a need for a region-wide conservation strategy for the church forests of the Ethiopian highlands.…”

“…Traditionally, conservation efforts have focused either on large and relatively undisturbed habitats because large areas conserve relatively more species (Laurance 2005), or on biodiversity hotspots with exceptional concentrations of endemic species under relatively high levels of threat (Myers et al 2000). However, conserving a number of small habitat patches such as sacred groves can have additional value for conserving biodiversity, for instance by covering a wider variety of habitats than would be achieved by protecting a few large patches of an equivalent total area (Bhagwat and Rutte 2006;Hokkanen et al 2009) and thus contributing to higher total biodiversity covered (Benedick et al 2006). Another important benefit is that a habitat network enabling dispersal amongst sacred groves and other protected areas (Laita et al 2010;Chiarucci et al 2012) may make an important contribution to genetic connectivity (Lander et al 2010) and the survival of species as metapopulations (sensu Hanski 1998).…”

“…Sacred groves exist in many countries (for reviews see Bhagwat and Rutte 2006;Dudley et al 2010), and there are well documented examples throughout Asia (e.g. Brandt et al 2013;Gao et al 2013;Gunaga et al 2013;Allendorf et al 2014) and Africa (e.g.…”

Exploring the Ecological History of a Tropical Agroforestry Landscape Using Fossil Pollen and Charcoal Analysis from Four Sites in Western Ghats, India

“…400 years) and that farmers have actively managed the landscape by reducing but also by maintaining the number of trees in the landscape. One example is the establishment of sacred groves that are known to be protecting trees dedicated to the worship (Bhagwat and Rutte 2006). The long-term history of sacred groves could be indicating that farmers may have protected habitat-specialist trees from fires and other major disturbances associated with the change in land-use from forest to agriculture (Chazdon 2003;Bhagwat and others 2014).…”

Comparing the Effectiveness of Informal and Formal Institutions in Sustainable Common Pool Resources Management in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…This had turned the attention of the development agencies to the importance of the already existing informal institutions within the 'target environment' (Watson 2003). Informal institutions are established on different grounds and for various reasons, such as economic reasons (i.e., groups run common economic activities such as labour sharing during harvest seasons, informal healing and hunting (Appiah-Opoku 1999), and religious reasons (i.e., groups have common religions and beliefs such as taboos and sacredness (Bhagwat & Rutte 2006;Alemayehu 2007).…”