TITLE:
Sacred Grove—A Nature’s Gift—as a Remedy for Human Ailments, a Biodiversity Reservoir for Restoring Indigenous Traits for Endangered Listed Plants—A Review
AUTHORS:
Aparna Asokan, Snehita Chouhan, Vinod Singh
KEYWORDS:
Biodiversity, Sacred Groves, Indigenous, Nature, Conservation, Traits
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.2 No.7,
July
29,
2015
ABSTRACT: This review article is an attempt on hypothetical analysis
of biodiversity which includes by exploring and implementing the so called protected
area by the small communities “Sacred Groves” made declared by a group of people
of those community over a century, some were half way made and few, were more than
a decayed old. Sacred groves are considered rich in biodiversity, and also the
resourceful source of flora and fauna of rare species. Traditional knowledge based
sacred groves conservation has a significant contribution in the process of biodiversity
conservation and also most of the plants or trees are of medicinal importance and
hence the maintenance of the sanctity of that area reflects in the rectification
of human ailments. Sacred groves are indicative of positive consequential combination
of religion and ecology. The present article
is written to draw attention to the readers to have an idea of other country’s traditional
systems of offering prayers to the God, and also their belief system for natural
sacred sites. This conservation of many plants species has been reported, so in
view of the biodiversity conservation with respect to plants, their sacredness
and the involved community of different countries, the present review article has
incorporated the published work as well as the unpublished views also, for opening
an avenue to study the interrelation of community based sacred groves, the ingredients
of that area and the functional efficacy towards nature for treating human ailments
under natural environment. This review article gives way to many innovative ideas
which definitely lead to newer technologies by technocrats.