Sacred Grove Write Up

Round-1

Biodiversity and Ecological Aspects of Sacred Groves of India: An Overview

Suggested title: SACRED GROVE STUDIES: LOOKOUT FOR NEW DIRECTIONS

Introduction

Sacred groves can be defined as segments of the landscape, containing trees and other forms of life and geographical features, that are delimited and protected by human societies because it is believed that to keep them in a relatively undisturbed state is an expression of important relationship to the divine or to nature (Hughes and Chandran, 1998). International Union for Conservation of Nature and natural Resources (IUCN), treats sacred groves under sacred natural sites (SNS) which can be clarified as “natural areas of special spiritual significance to peoples and communities. They include natural areas recognized as sacred by indigenous and traditional peoples, as well as natural areas recognized by institutionalized religions or faiths as places for worship and remembrance” (IUCN, 2005).

Sacred groves per se, as preserved patches of natural vegetation, assumed greater importance with the arrival of agriculture. Rapid spread of agriculture and pastoralism necessitated clearances of vast stretches of primeval forests. The fear of offending the gods of nature and the adverse consequences of forest clearance in the form of soil erosion, drying up of watersheds, impoverishment of biodiversity, changes in microclimatic conditions, pest pressures etc. would have propelled the emergence of sacred grove-centered worship Sacred groves existed in the past or continue to exist today in many parts of the world, and among people with many religions and forms of social and economic organization. They were preserved in the name of gods in ancient Asia, Africa, Europe, America and Austro-pacific region (Hughes and Chandran, 1998).

Throughout history, many peoples customarily respected sacred groves. These were sections of forest where spiritual beings were believed to reside, and where ordinary activities such as tree felling, gathering of wood, plants and leaves, hunting fishing, grazing of domestic animals, lowing or harvesting of crops, and building ordinary dwellings (Hughes and Swan, 1986). Indigenous cultures almost all over the world, worshipped deities associated with mountains and cliffs, rivers, springs and lakes, patches of forests, caves etc.It may be fear or gratitude or devotion which prompted people to assign sacredness to various natural sites or specific species of trees or animals. The role of these natural sacred sites is attracting increasing interest in international organizations such as UNESCO, the World Wide Fund for Nature etc. (Hay-Edie and Hadley, 1988).Sacred groves can be defined as segments of the landscape, containing trees and other forms of life and geographical features, that are delimited and protected by human societies because it is believed that to keep them in a relatively undisturbed state is an expression of important relationship to the divine or to nature (Hughes and Chandran, 1998). International Union for Conservation of Nature and natural Resources (IUCN), treats sacred groves under sacred natural sites (SNS) which can be clarified as “natural areas of special spiritual significance to peoples and communities. They include natural areas recognized as sacred by indigenous and traditional peoples, as well as natural areas recognized by institutionalized religions or faiths as places for worship and remembrance” (IUCN, 2005).

The groves started shrinking in size with the expansion of agriculture. The growth of cities and increased use of resources from the groves with the militaristic expansion of states in ancient days caused decline of groves in ancient Europe. Arrival of dogmatic religions that professed faith in one Supreme God decried and demolished many of these “paganic” (linked to rural folks) and ‘heathenish” (meaning anyone not a Jew, Christian or Muslim; irreligious, uncivilized etc.) worship places in different parts of the world, particularly in Europe and West Asia. Cultural changes leading to the identification of woodland deities with the high gods of the Hindu pantheon, an ongoing process in India, has resulted in the growth of temple-centered worship to the decline of groves. The greatest threat to sacred groves has been economic exploitation since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Colonial times and afterwards, sacred groves in India were included in forests managed by the Forest Department, and subjected to various extraction pressures or clear-cut to be replaced by plantations (Chandran and Hughes, 1997; Chandran, 1998; Hughes and Chandran, 1998).

Sacred grove culture in India has pre-Vedic roots; the Vedic people thoughpersonified elemental forces of nature as divinitieshad no association with sacred grove culture of non-Vedic inhabitants (Chandran, 2005).The institution of sacred grove, is on the wane in India, its last important stronghold,though it is still very much a living tradition here. Called variously as jankor, sarana (Central India), jaher (West Bengal), orans (Rajasthan), kavus (Kerala), deorai (Maharashtra), devarakadus (Kodagu), lakyntang (Meghalaya), kans (parts of Karnataka) etcsacred groves also have been reported from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and other north-eastern states. The numbers of groves in these states/regions are in hundreds or in thousands. Nevertheless there is also urgent need to systematically inventories the sacred groves in various parts of the country(Malhotra, 1998).

Sacred groves in the past were larger, each from few hectares to several hundred hectares in area. In the Sorab taluk in the central Western Ghats region of Karnataka, 171 kanscovered over 13,000 ha of land. The largest of these was the Halesorabkan having an area of about 400 ha (Brandis and Grant, 1868). The remains of such kanscan be found to this day in the region. These groves once formed more than 10% of the present geographical area of Sorab, and they were in addition to more extensive, fire- prone secondary forests, where biomass was extracted by the people (Chandran, 2005). The kanof Mulgund village in the adjoining Siddapur taluk covered 1039 ha, at the time when a forest working was formulated for extracting trees from the grove (Shanmukhappa, 1966). Most groves perished in due course of time due to reasons such as forest reservation by the state, beginning in the British period. The constitution of state-reserved forests replaced the earlier community based management systems. Later the groves were subjected to extraction pressures under organized forest working plans. Cultural changes leading to identification of woodland deities with gods of the Hindu pantheon was often followed by neglect and decline of those groves which continued to be under community control. Today large and in tact sacred groves are few and far between, as is the case in Uttara Kannada. An effort was made to reconstruct the traditional land use system in a 25 sq.km area (when the lands were under community control) in the Siddapur taluk of Uttara Kannada, using historical records, forest working plans and folk history. It was found that about 6% of the landscape was under sacred kans. This was probable because Siddapur taluk is located next to Sorab in the central Western Ghats, where a similar system of sacred groves could have existed in most places, at altitudes below 1000 m, suitable for human settlements, shifting cultivation and other land uses. Presently, in the same focal area of 25 sq.km, only 0.31% of the land is under sacred groves (Chandran and Gadgil 1988). Many isolated large groves, however, continue to exist in many parts of the country. The Hariyali sacred grove in the Chamoli district of Garhwal Himalaya is reported to be 550 ha in size (Sinha and Maikhuri, 1988). A grove in Bhimashankar in Pune district is stated to be over 700 ha (Borges and Rane, 1992). Sacred groves in Meghalaya varied in size from 0.01 ha to 900 ha (Tiwari et al., 1998). The smaller sizesand concomitant species shrinkage notwithstanding,the present day grovesare often relics of past vegetation than secondary forests and many rare elements of biodiversity are still found in them.

The scientific community today recognizesthis ancientsystem of preserving sacred groves amidst man-modified landscape elements as one of the tenets of sustainable use of natural resources harmonized with biodiversity conservation. The spiritual ties that humans established from ancient times with prime patches of forests ensured not only the long term subsistence interest of local people but also kept going the dynamics of local ecosystems. Theirmany gifts, especially water and non-timber products and the congenial microclimate they provided for local cultivation systems, earned a prime place for sacred groves among the traditional village communities, especially of the Indian highlands.

Scientific studies on the sacred groves of India got a fillip with the pioneering work of Gadgil and Vartak (1975, 1976, 1980). For the first time the groves were studied in a holistic way encompassing biologic, ecologic and socio-cultural perspectives. More studies followed and several conferences held at nationally and internationallyon sacred groves and natural sacred sites resulting in sudden growth of literature on sacred groves over the last three decades.Most studies hitherto can be broadlycategorized into:

Inventory and documentation
Cultural aspects
Biodiversity and ecological assessment
Conservation status and conservation programmes
Social and policyframework

Studies continue today on a much trodden path, with not many variations; basically they are region-wise inventoriesdealing with numbers, area, major elements of biodiversity, especially of higher plants and vertebrates, cultural aspects etc. They have not met with the expected success, to produce action plans to salvage and restore scores of these relic forests with their rare biota and revive their ecological functions reminiscent of the primeval forests. The governments of the states and centre are not sufficiently enthused to formulate plans for these precious bits of forests. Sacred grove studies are in need of new directions to provide the necessary blueprints for future conservation programs. Strengtheningsacred-grove centered approach for revival of especially village ecosystems in highlands and plains alike, through people’s participation, irrespective of caste or community, can certainly invigorate India’s rural economy while also giving the world a decentralized alternative path for biodiversity conservation, raising also fresh hopes for local level actions for mitigating global climatic change.

Sacred grove studies can take new directions only after a comprehensive appraisal of the work carried out already. We have therefore attempted to review the nature of works carried out hitherto in the country. It needs to be emphasized that the review is more on the kinds of studies carried out than on individual works per se. This review, hopefully, would prompt researches to open new vistas in sacred grove studies aimed at unravelingmore on their functional aspects and ecosystem services, using well designed, locality-specific methods. More focus in future should be on aspects of soil and water conservation, hydrological features, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, lower plant groups, invertebrates and micro-organisms. As their size-related effectiveness in floral and faunal conservation in humanized landscapes etc. Such studies could ultimately lead to a more rational approach to the much needed conservation and restoration of sacred groves, a heritage that is fading away fast even from their last bastions in the Indian highlands. The scientific community has to spend more time on discussions and formulation of suitable locality specific methods for sacred grove studies to achieve the new objectives.

Biodiversity assessment

Most sacred grove studies so far have focused mainly on biodiversity aspects. Despite their fragmentation and isolationthese cultural and biological relics are considered repositories of rare species in comparison to adjoining landscape elements (Bhakat 2004, Bhagwat 2005,Khan et al 2008). Inventorisation of floral elements of the groves include species composition and richness, dominance, distribution, rarity and endemism etc (Jain 1983, Vartak and Kumbhojkar 1984, Puspanghadan et al 1996, Upadhaya et al. 2003, Amirthlinagam 2004, Khumbongmayum et al. 2005, ). Studies on faunal diversity of sacred groves are rather scanty.

Vegetation

Sacred groves often present characteristic vegetation of a region or its’ remains. Sacred groves of Meghalaya, for instance,represent subtropical wet hill evergreen forest type, characterized by Cinnamomum, Schima, Castanopsis, Syzygiumetc. The groves preserve the basic nature of the vegetation, that north-east geographic region is indeed a confluence of the floral elements of the tropical and temperate as well of Sino-Himalayan and Burma-Malayan regions(Jamir, 2003; Upadhaya et al, 2004). Down in the south, the Eastern Ghat groves have dry evergreen forest vegetation with characteristic two-layered canopy, dominated by members of Fabaceae, Moraceae, Capparaceae, Ebenaceae, Rubiaceae and Rutaceae (Parthasarathy, 1997; Sukumaran, 2005, 2007). In Kerala, the wider distribution of sacred groves reflects the varied vegetation profile of the state. Grove flora consists of wet evergreen, semi evergreen, deciduous as well as swamp members depending on their locations. The highland groves have typical Western Ghats forest type vegetation whereas, groves in mid altitudes present varied range of vegetation from evergreen to semi evergreen forests including Myristica swamps. The swamps are dominated by exclusive tree species such asMyristicamagnifica(Endangered)and Gymnacranthera canaricaof Myristicaceae, one of the most primitive families of angiosperms. Some of the swampy groves in Uttara Kannada are the only repositories in central Western GhatsofSyzygium travancoricumof and Madhuca bourdillnonii (both Critically Endangered). Groves in coastal Kerala harbour species like Samadera indica, Vatica chinensis and Calophyllum inophyllum. Sacred groves project a hopeful situation, being sometimes the last refuge for several plant species, which have almost been wiped out due to massive anthropogenic pressure. Similarly a number of endemic species which have narrow distribution range and high sensitivity to spatio-temporal changes are often subject to extinction due to many adverse activities. Being a part of relic vegetation as well as under community based conservation, or under forest department jurisdiction at present, groves often act as refugia for scores of rare and threatened species (see (Table1 for details- the table may be deleted). Even, plants often thought as extinct have been reported from the groves in Kerala and Karnataka (Induchoodan 1996, Pushpangadan et al 1998, Jayaraman 2004; Chandran et al 2008).

It has been assumed that the microclimatic conditions of thelargergroves are congenial for the climax vegetation of a region. The smaller groves, however, subjected to isolation and higher human pressures tend to have a greater mix of secondary and invasive species of plants(Induchoodan 1996, Ramanujam 2001).Many groves are reasonably good for sustaining plant communities which are stable and regenerating as can be assessed from the abundance of seedlings and saplings(Chandrashekara et al 1998, Mishra et al. 2005, Khumbongmayum 2006,Laloo 2006,). Canopy gaps created by natural tree falls increase survival percentage of seedlings of grove species due to better light conditions at ground level and provide suitable microenvironment favoring rapid growth of ground layer plants(Khumbongmayum et al. 2005, Laloo et al 2006). Higher intensities of disturbance by humans, particularly by tree cutting reduces canopy cover increasing light and temperature intensity at ground level, result in proliferation of pioneer and invasive species, reducedtree diversity, increaseddominance of fewfamilies and contagious distribution (Rao et al. 1990, Chandrashekhara and Shankar 1998, Mishra et al. 2004).

Lower plants

Most sacred grove studies hitherto dealt with mainly higher plant species, though they could harbor interesting lower plants. Brown et al (2006) studied 25 sacred groves of Western Ghats for macrofungi and reported distinct assemblage of macrofungal members from these sites. The abundance of leaf litter and dead wood in the sacred groves are responsible for the unique assemblage of these decomposer fungi. Their morphotypes and sporcoarps were in greater abundance than in the neighbouring coffee plantations. Apart from richness of organic matter the sacred groves are free from application of fungicides. In another study in Mawphlang sacred grove, Meghalaya, 48 fungal species have been detected among which Aspergillus clavatus, A. flavus, A. niger,Cladosporium herbarum, Fusarium moniliforme are dominant members (Kayang 2006). Fissidens kammadensis, a new moss species has been recorded from a sacred grove of Kasargode district of Kerala (Manju et al.2008)