ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Spirited Rescue For Biodiversity

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Dev Raj

NEW DELHI, May 3 1998 (IPS) - Reviving the ancient concept of the inviolable ‘sacred-grove,’ inhabited by spirits, may be India’s last chance to preserve the country’s rich but seriously threatened biodiversity.

Faced with remote sensing data showing a loss of 5,500 sq km of forest cover since 1995, the government is now seriously considering a proposal to harness socio-cultural beliefs which have protected patches of pristine vegetation across the country through centuries.

Behind the UNESCO-backed proposal is an ecology professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) here, P.S. Ramakrishna, who describes sacred groves as “patches of vegetation traditionally protected by local communities and ranging in size from less than one hectare to a few square kilometres.”

Ramakrishna said he was first struck by the protective power of sacred groves, 12 years ago, while investigating the rapid denudation of dense forests in the Cherrapunji district of north-eastern Meghalaya state – considered the world’s wettest spot.

What greeted Ramakrishna and his team of 80 scientists were hills entirely balded by rapacious timber contractors and relieved only by scattered ‘lakyntang’ or sacred groves which survived because the local Khasi tribe believed that their destruction would bring certain calamity.

The lakyntang proved to be “relic forests”, which offered answers to why the fragile ecosystem never revived once the contractors had finished their plunder, Ramakrishna said. “The hills had little top soil and it must have taken hundreds of years for vegetation to take root and support the ecosystem.”

Just what fell to the lumber contractors axe became apparent when the team found something like 120 easily identifiable species of life within a small one hectare plot of the Mawsmai sacred grove situated 20 kms away from Cherrapunji.

“In Mawsmai we could still see the fine root mat spread over the mineral soil which is so important for the large biomass above the ground because it ensured the tight recycling of nutrients,” Ramakrishna said.

Linked to the dramatic loss in biodiversity, Ramakrishna’s team found immense human suffering and water shortages at Cherrapunji which records 200 cms of average annual rainfall. Unimpeded by vegetation the water now simply flows into the plains below.

In all, the team counted 21 sacred groves, the most famous of them being Mawphlang close to the state capital of Shillong which resembled an island of dense forest in an otherwise desertified landscape and disturbed only peripherally.

Reviving the forests around Cherrapunji would now be impossible because most of the Khasis have converted to Christianity and abandoned the animistic practices which had protected the forests for centuries.

But Prof. Ramakrishna has since set about identifying and listing hundreds of sacred groves around the country. In southern Kerala state alone he counted more than 500 ‘kavus’ where people believe spirits including those of dead ancestors reside.

According to a report prepared by the Centre for Earth System Studies (CESS) situated in Trivandrum city, Kerala, the kavus contain many endangered species of medicinal plants long used by traditional Ayurvedic healers. Some of the kavus extend up to 20 hectares in size and are virtual treasure-houses of biodiversity.

UNESCO consultant and director of the Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute at Trivandrum, P. Pushpangadan says the kavus were once important features of every village and formed the stage for animistic ceremonies such as the ritual feeding of snakes.

“The ceremonies often involved shamanistic rites in which the shaman would invariably admonish the devotees to protect the trees and other vegetation in the grove,” Pushpangadan said.

Though the sacred grove concept is universal, and invariably serves the purpose of conservation, local beliefs and practices may vary greatly across the sub-continent, says Bhaskar Sinha, a JNU researcher working with Ramakrishna.

Armed with Dutch funding worth USD 30,000, routed through UNESCO, Ramakrishna and his colleagues at JNU are now running comparative studies of sacred groves at seven different sites across the country, the results of which are to be presented at a South Asian workshop on the subject in September.

Sinha, who made an ecological study of one of the seven

sites, Hariyal (god’s meadow), in the idyllic, Chamoli district of northern Uttar Pradesh state, said the distinctive feature there is the entrustment of the grove’s well-being to the inhabitants of three villages, Kodima, Jasholi and Pavo, although the beneficiaries extended far beyond.

“While Hariyal is untouched, because there are religious taboos against bringing an axe into it, there is an interactive zone created for common use which satisfies the fodder and fuelwood needs of of the villagers,” Sinha said.

Spread over a five sq. km area, Hariyal is thick with oak trees, that are crucial role preventing soil erosion and water- level depletion, and in maintaining five streams which serve the needs of adjoining villages.

What is important is that local communities in Haryal and elsewhere have long ago understood the difference between minor disturbances to the ecosystem and major ones which are irreparable, Ramakrishna said. “The concept is still new to western ecologists,” he said.

Thus, while the Bhutia tribe of the remote Demajong region on the southern slopes of the Kanchenjunga massif in Sikkim had little problem with tourists trekking through their ‘sacred landscape,’ they staunchly resisted attempts to build a hydel plant in the area. The plan was finally scrapped this year.

Ramakrishna, who was commissioned to report on the project three years ago, came away so awed by the variety of natural and human ecosystems which had evolved on a 12 kilometre stretch of the steep slope, that he has since been urging the government to declare Demajong a national heritage site.

“The idea is to eventually get Demajong declared a UNESCO world heritage site, ” said Ramakrishna, who was member of an expert team which got the rice-terraces of the Ifagu tribe of northern Philippines so recognised a few years ago.

“Demajong is an exceptional case of a sacred landscape where ecological considerations cannot be separated from the historical, cultural and religious dimensions unique to the region and where the people are truly integrated into the landscape,” he said.

Sacred groves and landscapes need to be seen as community- based, living repositories which contribute to the more recent approaches to protected area management based on western scientific knowledge and promoted by conservation groups and government agencies, he added.

Weaving the socio-cultural concept into firm government policy will undoubtedly take time but several ideas came up at a UNESCO- sponsored regional workshop conducted a few months ago at the Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI) in Peechi town.

Meanwhile, well-endowed, religious organisations like the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) have gone ahead and recreated the forests of ‘Nandavana’ in Brindavan near Mathura city in northern Uttar Pradesh, believed to be the playground of the Hindu cowherd god Krishna.