In India’s Western Ghats, sacred groves – small, community-protected forest patches dedicated to local deities – are far more effective at regenerating native tree species than surrounding village lands, according to a recent study, reports Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough.
For the study, a research team from the Applied Environmental Research Foundation (AERF) mapped and measured 82 giant, old-growth trees across 20 species in the village of Vanzole in the northern Western Ghats, the mountain chain that runs alongside India’s west coast. The researchers defined giant trees as those that measure more than 1 meter (3.3 feet).
The researchers found that sacred groves held nearly twice the giant-tree species of nearby village areas, with 12 of the measured species growing exclusively within the groves. For example, while fruit trees including mango (Mangifera indica) and jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) were dominant in the villages, trees such as baheda (Terminalia bellirica), a medicinal plant, were common in the groves.
“Settlements are curated orchards, while sacred groves are ecological time capsules,” study co-author Kevin Matteson, associate director of Project Dragonfly at Miami University, told Mongabay.
Giant trees act as “ecological catcher’s mitts,” providing the massive branches and hollows needed by large, fruit-eating birds such as hornbills, Matteson said. As these birds feed, they disperse large seeds across the landscape.
Seeds dropped in the less-disturbed ground of the sacred groves are more likely to grow into trees themselves compared to those dropped in village grounds, the study found.
For instance, saplings of the strychnine tree (Strychnos nux-vomica), the seeds of which are heavily dispersed by hornbills, grew beneath 77% of grove trees but beneath just 5% of village trees.
The studied groves averaged only 6,587 square meters (70,902 square feet) in size, but still function as critical baseline “reference forests” that show what the original biodiversity of that specific region looked like before human modification, according to the study’s first author Omkar Pai from AERF.
The groves also serve as ecological stepping stones across fragmented landscapes. AERF recorded a Royal Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) and a black leopard (Panthera pardus) in a private forest that the foundation helps to protect near a tiger reserve.
The groves are changing, however, with some shrines being cleared to make way for concrete temples. “From an ecological perspective, pouring concrete over root zones and clearing underbrush physically removes the nursery habitat,” Pai said.
AERF director Archana Godbole said conserving these forests requires preserving the traditional cultures that guard them.
Ditro Wibisono Wardi Parikesit, an ecologist who has studied forests in Indonesian Borneo protected by spiritual beliefs and was not part of the India study, told Mongabay: “Fear is often viewed negatively, but in this context it can function as a protective force.”
Read the full story by Liz Kimbrough here.
Banner image: Malabar pied hornbills (Anthracoceros coronatus) are important seed dispersers in India’s Western Ghats. Image by Narendra Phadke via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).
