The need to preserve sacred groves

 

Sacred groves are patches of vegetation that are revered. They are of immense ecological and cultural significance.  

Supreme Court wants a plan to map and manage the sacred groves. But history shows they are better preserved by local communities with deep links to them.

Nanditha Krishna

In December 2024, the Supreme Court directed the Rajasthan government to map, identify and formally notify orans or sacred groves as ‘deemed forests’. It recommended a nationwide policy for their protection and management by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change by being designated as ‘community reserves’ under the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972. The court stressed the importance of mapping sacred groves across the country, emphasising that they are not just tracts of land but areas of immense ecological and cultural significance. 

Sacred groves are areas of ecological significance where local communities have traditionally protected floral and faunal diversity for their religious, cultural and ecological significance. They play a vital role in conserving biodiversity and wildlife, and are often the last refuge for the endemic species in a region, including for medicinal plants. The vegetation improves soil quality, prevents erosion and recharges aquifers, thereby meeting local water requirements too. Hunting and logging are generally prohibited within them.

They are patches of natural vegetation that can be just a few trees or forests covering several acres. Each state has its own name for such groves—from bani in Kashmir to kovilkaadu in Tamil Nadu, and kaavu in Kerala, deovan in Maharashtra to gumpa in Arunachal Pradesh.

They can be sorted into three broad categories—traditional ones treated as the home of a local deity and represented by an elementary symbol, temple groves created around a shrine, and those around burial or cremation grounds. Those dedicated to folk deities are perhaps the most common. Such deities include Amman and Ayyanaar in Tamil Nadu, Sarpa in Kerala, and Waghdeo in Maharashtra.

The degree of sanctity accorded varies from one grove to another. In some forests, even the dry foliage and fallen fruits are not touched. People believe that any disturbance would offend the local deity, causing disease, calamities or crop failures. For example, the Garo and Khasi tribes of northeastern India completely prohibit any human interference in their sacred groves. Elsewhere, deadwood or dried leaves may be picked up, but a live tree or its branches can never be cut. The Gonds of central India prohibit the cutting of a tree, but allow its fallen parts to be used.

It’s said the Aranyakas—philosophical speculations grouped under a word for ‘belonging to the wilderness’—were composed in forests before river Saraswati dried up and people from the region moved eastwards. The leftover patches of forest were protected by the local people. In the 15^th century, Guru Jambheshwar founded the Bishnoi movement that prioritises protection of trees and animals. Thus, the orans (a cognate of aranya) of Thar are pockets of biodiversity in the desert.

Sacred groves are found all over the country, but are abundant especially along the Western Ghats in Kerala and Karnataka, and the forests of northeast India. Although there has been no comprehensive estimate of their numbers across India, Chennai’s CPR Environmental Education Centre has documented over 10,000 sacred groves so far as part of its documentation of India’s ecological heritage. Experts estimate the actual number could be in the range of 100,000-150,000.

The threats to the groves vary from one region to another, and even from one grove to another. But the most common ones are the disappearance of traditional belief systems, rapid urbanisation and developmental interventions such as building roads, railway tracks, dams and commercial forestry. Encroachment has led to the shrinkage of some of the largest groves. Many suffer from the transformation of primitive forms of nature worship into formal temple worship. Invasion by exotic weeds such as Eupatorium odoratum, Lantana camara and Prosopis juliflora are another serious concern. Finally, pressures from increasing livestock grazing and fuelwood collection threaten their survival.

The CPR Environmental Education Centre has restored 52 sacred groves and nurtured a new one since the early 1990s. Restoring groves was difficult. Elders had to be consulted on what trees were once found there, but the memories were still fresh and wastelands soon became thick forests. Birds and some wildlife returned. The lakes filled up and groundwater levels went up. All this was possible because the local people remembered that there was once a magical forest that belonged to a village deity who was regarded their kuladeivam or even ancestor. And they joined hands to restore and protect it.

Is the Supreme Court’s recommendation for the environment ministry to develop a comprehensive policy to protect and manage sacred groves necessary? Sacred groves were protected for millenniums by local communities. Once governments enter, they usually claim ownership of the land, construct large temples over small shrines, and build roads through groves—indiscriminately destroying ancient trees in the process. Local wildlife shrinks or dies, while birds fly away depriving the land of rich guano. I have seen rich forests becoming wastelands in this manner.

Groves considered sacred once dotted the entire world. Today, they are restricted to Asia and Africa. Let’s protect the ones that are left. Not through big governments, but through local communities that are or were closely connected to the sacred groves.

Nanditha Krishna

Historian, environmentalist and writer based in Chennai

Credit to orginal source: : https://www.newindianexpress.com/amp/story/opinions/2025/Mar/22/the-need-to-preserve-sacred-groves bclid=IwY2xjawJPKydleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHX2E8gLTf1MyhYLazIM8osWy5sS2Y9Fgu84oKbVAaBjGih

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New Indian Express_March 23, 2025