Sacred groves are tracts of virgin forest with rich diversity, which have been protected by the local people for centuries for their cultural and religious beliefs and taboos that the deities reside in them and protect the villagers from different calamities. Every sacred grove carries its own legends, lore, and myths which form the integral part of the sacred grove. An inextricable link between present society and past in terms of biodiversity, culture, religious and ethnic heritage exists in sacred groves. Sacred groves are distributed across the globe, and diverse cultures recognize them in different ways encoding various rules for their protection. Sacred groves occur in many parts of India viz., Western Ghats, Central India, northeast India, etc. particularly where the indigenous communities live. These are known by different names given to them by the ethnic people. Sacred groves act as an ideal centre for biodiversity conservation. Several plants and animals that are threatened in the forest are still well c onserved in some of the sacred groves. It has been observed that several medicinal plants that are not to be found in the forest are abundant in the sacred groves. Further, rare, endangered, threatened and endemic species are often concentrated in sacred groves. The sacredness, religious beliefs and taboos play a significant role in promoting sustainable utilization and conservation of flora and fauna of the region. However, with the passage of time, considerable changes have taken place in the extent of the sacred groves, in their vegetation structure, peoples’ perception towards them and the religious beliefs and taboos. Therefore, a holistic understanding of the current status, structure and function of sacred grove is essential for assessing their ecological role and formulating strategies for their conservation. This paper briefly reviews the studies on sacred groves across the globe in general and India in particular, highlighting that the tradition of sacred groves could provide a powerful tool for ensuring biodiversity conservation through community participation.

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The Sacred Groves and Their Significance in Conserving Biodiversity An Overview

The role of traditional beliefs systems in the conservation of natural resources in some selected communities in Delta State, Nigeria, have been studied. Methodology of study involves the use of personal interview, literature review, group discussion, and site visitation carried out by the authors between April 2011 and March 2012. Findings show that traditional natural resources management in the selected communities are classified into the following categories: protection of particular ecosystems or habitats (such as sacred groves and sacred rivers/pond); and protection of particular animals or plant species (such as totem and tabooed species). The practices concerned relate to trees, forests, wildlife and marine organisms. The environmental wisdom and ethics expressed through these religious beliefs are very useful tools in natural resource management. Using the classification of the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the plants and animals species in the study scared groves and forest can be described as an environment with widespread and abundant taxonomy and are not at risk or endangered.

	 

	Key words: Forest, sacred groves, traditional beliefs, biodiversity conservation, natural resources management, totems.

https://www.academicjournals.org/article/article1380045794_Rim-Rukeh et al.pdf

Traditional beliefs and conservation of natural resources: evidences from selected communities in Delta State, Nigeria.

Using Wikipedia page views to explore the cultural importance of global reptiles

This article contains the reasons for the establishment of sacred trees in Israel based on a field study. It includes 97 interviews with Muslim and Druze informants. While Muslims (Arabs and Bedouins) consider sacred trees especially as an abode of righteous figures' (Wellis') souls or as having a connection to their graves, the Druze relate sacred trees especially to the events or deeds in the lives of prophets and religious leaders. A literary review shows the existence of 24 known reasons for the establishment of sacred trees worldwide, 11 of which are known in Israel one of these is reported here for the first time. We found different trends in monotheistic and polytheistic religions concerning their current worship of sacred trees.

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On the typology and the worship status of sacred trees with a special reference to the Middle East.

A number of studies have suggested that the management of national parks might be best served if undertaken according to the principles of ecotourism, a concept that potentially provides a ‘win-win’ solution to the conflicting aspects of conservation and recreation in protected areas. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to critically appraise the potential of ecotourism as a framework for implementing tourism in a national park. More specifically, it seeks to explore the implications of actors’ values for the effective implementation of ecotourism policy. Many studies overlook the importance of the understanding and response of different values as fundamental aspects in the process of policy-making. 

Based on a case study of Sebangau National Park, Kalimantan, Indonesia, and using Schwartz’s theory as the fundamental conceptual framework, this research progresses the argument that the development of ecotourism policy should be seen in terms of the values espoused by relevant actors by seeking to identify the values and behaviours of the actors involved in ecotourism development in the park and the subsequent management implications. This study adopts the philosophy of pragmatism and mixed methods as its methodological approach, and is carried out in three phases: interviews (qualitative), focus group discussions (qualitative) and a survey (quantitative), followed by appropriate methods of analysis, such as performing ANCOVA and performing grounded theory to analyse qualitative data, supported by NVivo software. 

The results show that the Indonesian people, from the tourists’ perspective, embrace the culture of embeddedness with a tendency towards the value of Conformity that implies they are willing to follow regulations because they are aware of the importance of the local community and of the natural resources in the park. Meanwhile, the value of Benevolence should be the value espoused by policy makers because it is exerts a more significant influence on the concept of ecotourism in comparison with the other nine Schwartz’s values. In addition, even though several studies show that the value of Power tends not to be pro-environment, the involvement of actors who embrace it cannot be ignored in the policy-making process because it is required to demonstrate leadership, participation, self-determination, competence and self-efficacy behaviour. Moreover, the importance of the Hedonism value based on tourists’ perspective implies that tourists have the potential to behave in an anti-conservation manner for the sake of personal satisfaction; thus, it will lead to consumptive behaviour at tourist locations, even for ecotourism destinations.

The implications of the values and behaviours of actors for ecotourism policy : a case study of Sebangau National Park, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

In spite of the unrelenting advent of modernization involving industrialization and market-oriented land use policies, traditional ecological ethos still survive in many indigenous societies, albeit in much attenuated forms. Based on a series of our past investigations into the traditional resource use norms and associated cultural institutions prevailing in rural Bengal societies, we demonstrate here that a large number of elements of local biodiversity, regardless of their use value, are protected by the local cultural practices. Certain cultural elements (e.g., auguries) may not have any conservation consequences, yet may reflect, in symbolic terms, a collective appreciation of the intrinsic or existence value of life forms, and the basic love and respect for nature. The study suggests that traditional conservation ethics are still capable of protecting much of the country's decimating biodiversity, as long as the local communities have even a minor share in the management of natural resources.

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Debel Deb

Papers

Conservation Ethos in Local Traditions: The West Bengal Heritage