Subscribe
A few years ago, this reporter had witnessed a tribal woman in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh district sound an alarm. The community’s sacred grove was under the threat of being displaced forever.
This is not the only case. Many groves are dying across India due to deforestation, mining and developmental activities.
Sacred groves bear different names based on their location. They are called sarnas in Jharkhand, devgudis in Chhattisgarh and orans in Rajasthan. Groves range in size, varying from places with a few trees to huge ones spread over several acres. There are groves where a single sal tree, considered sacred in Jharkhand, still stands intact.
The total area occupied by sacred groves is an estimated 33,000 hectares. This is 0.01 per cent of India’s total area. Maharashtra has the highest number of groves, with nearly 3,000 documented.
Rich biodiverse areas, sacred groves are considered socially and culturally important. Through centuries, tribal communities have nurtured deep connections with groves where they offer worship. This continues even today.
In order to meet India’s climate commitment of net zero by 2070, forest conservation is important. But besides government-owned forests, there is a need to protect sacred groves as these can help mitigate climate change by acting as carbon sinks. If properly managed, climate change can be halted, and people’s close link with nature nurtured. There is often a sense of alienation when communities are relocated to boost conservation.
Yon Fernandez-de-Larrinoa, who heads the Indigenous Peoples Unit of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, said before the concept of ecology was developed, sacred groves signified environmental preservation and conservation. “Indigenous Peoples around the world have codes which guide their behaviour based on spirituality. It is codified in their customary rules and governance systems.”
Varun Jain, the deputy director of Udanti-Sitanadi Tiger Reserve in Chhattisgarh, told this reporter about how tribals worship flora and fauna as they are considered divine.
Jain feels that this deep reverence towards nature is a starting point to talk about forest conservation. The department has hired painters to carry out wall paintings in the villages inside the reserve to spread environmental awareness. Department staff have cleared 190 hectares of encroachment near a devgudi where rampant illegal felling had been taking place for the past 15 years.
“While providing community forest resource rights as part of the Forest Rights Act (passed in 2006), the department is trying to convince communities that a certain patch of forest be demarcated as sacred. This should not be used for grazing and firewood collection. It will ensure an inviolate space for wildlife,” Jain said.
According to tiger expert Ullas Karanth, sacred groves may harbour smaller forms of biodiversity even though larger landscape species like tigers are sustained mainly on extensive government-owned forests.
The return of a leopard to a sacred grove in Maharashtra’s Raigad district shows its importance from the conservation point of view. The Waghoba Habitat Foundation in Mumbai, has managed to conserve a sacred grove 80 kilometres away from the metropolis. Members of the local Thakar tribe, with the support of the Pardhi family, managed to resist the timber mafia in this initiative.
Located at Chinchwadi village, the grove known as Taata chi Vanrai is spread over eight acres. It is dedicated to Waghoba, the tiger deity. The forest has native trees.
“The grove is located in a privately-owned forest close to a reserve forest. For the first time in 20 years, a leopard was spotted near the sculpted Waghoba totem placed under an old cluster fig tree. This is encouraging,” Sanjiv Valsan, founder of the Waghoba Habitat Foundation, said.
In western India, the worship of Waghoba, a spirit deity which encompasses all big cats, is prevalent among tribal communities like the Thakars, the Koknas and the Warlis in forest patches. Tigers and leopards are mainly worshipped.
The ritual has helped preserve forest patches and supported coexistence. Citing the example of Aarey forest, where too Waghoba is worshipped, Valsan explained that communities have learnt to coexist with leopards. The animals have also learnt the same. This is unique, as Mumbai has the highest population density of leopards, and at the same time harbours the highest human density. The Sanjay Gandhi National Park, in which Aarey lies, has about 26 leopards per 100 sq km.
Statues dedicated to Waghoba are also worshipped in the villages surrounding the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district. Nitin Yelkarwar, who runs a hotel here, explained that when people lose their lives due to human-tiger conflict which is high, statues of the tiger deity are erected near forest areas. Family members of the deceased offer prayers on the occasion of Pitra Moksha. They are mostly from the Gond and Mana tribes.
In Tadoba where conservation has been successful, new areas have been opened for tourists. However, with increased tiger numbers, conflict is common. “In other tiger reserves, mostly core areas are promoted. But in Tadoba, the buffer zone is active. Locals have been employed well from the surrounding villages. That is why though burdened by losses, people slowly come to terms with them,” Yelkarwar said.
Whatever be the reason, worshipping Waghoba shows India’s deep-rooted faith in ecology. But with the decline of many sacred groves, tribal cultures are also under threat. The custom of worshipping Waghoba and other deities may possibly vanish in future. As the country is trying to fulfil its climate goals, preservation of age-old customs related to forest conservation better continue.
According to Nikit Surve, who works for the Wildlife Conservation Society, sacred groves come under the concept of Other Effective Area Based Conservation Measures (OECMs). “Groves are owned and managed by communities, and thus, have deep-rooted cultural values. This helps preserve forests which ultimately helps in climate change mitigation,” he said
OECM, a new approach to conservation, is included in the Convention on Biological Diversity. It is a geographically defined area other than a protected area. “It is governed and managed in ways that achieve positive and sustained long-term outcomes for the in-situ conservation of biodiversity, with associated ecosystem functions and services and where applicable, cultural, spiritual, socio–economic, and other locally relevant values.”
Besides individuals like Valsan, there have been efforts from governments as well to protect groves.
The Jharkhand government came up with the concept of gherabandi around 2019 to conserve groves with boundary walls.
In Chhattisgarh, the renovation of many groves was undertaken during the rule of the previous government. Abhay Minz, assistant professor of anthropology at Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee University in Ranchi, said such schemes are often carried out without including the voice of communities. Moreover, with the emphasis on reserved forests, sacred groves often escape notice. But as Minz pointed out, groves are places where felling of trees are forbidden, and hence, full of oxygen.
