Potential Role of Sacred Groves of Panchmahals District in Biodiversity Conservation in Gujarat
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36808/if/2018/v144i11/141156Keywords:
Sacred Groves, Biodiversity, Conservation, PanchmahalsAbstract
Sacred groves are a relic of pre-Vedic religious practices. Every village has a grove a protected area associated with local folk deities of obscure origin. Indigenous and local communities all across the globe have conserved thousands of sacred sites and sacred forests for millennia for spiritual, cultural, economic and aesthetic purposes. The sacred groves were rich in plant genetic diversity and were composed of many ethnobotanically useful species, including wild edible fruits, medicinal plants, fodder, fuel wood and timber yielding species.
The study aimed at the documentation and inventory of the sacred grove, its phytodiversity, threats and conservation in the Panchmahals District region, and to this, systematic field surveys were conducted during 2012-2015 covering all four seasons' viz., summer, rainy, winter and spring.
This article deals with listing of groves, documentation of traditional beliefs and cultural practices of different indigenous communities associated with sacred groves and management of sacred groves their importance in biodiversity conservation and forces threatening existence and suggestions and strategies for conservation of sacred groves etc. The present study was carried out in Panchmahals District sacred grove of Gujarat, India, in appreciation of its role in biodiversity conservation.
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