Save Our Forests

Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall, he will end by destroying the world. – Albert Schweitzer

Though the above quote is completely correct in today’s sense, thousands of years back our forefathers had the wisdom, vision and the foresight. They lived in close vicinity to jungles and perfectly knew their importance. At that time as well, they were very well aware of human greed that will harm not only other living things but will lead to self-destruction.

To save the forests from human invasion, they introduced a concept called Sacred Groves. In Marathi it is called as देवराई. They associated deities and/or ancestral spirits to such groves and gave a spiritual dimension to nature’s conservation. The undocumented rule of such sacred groves was that the tree cannot be cut without the permission of the deity because each and everything inside them was considered to be under the protection of a deity. The culture and the environment had the symbiotic relationship.

Concept of sacred protected our country’s biological diversities. Today thousands of such ancient sacred groves are known that are warehouses of astonishing biodiversity, store of rare plants and home for several types of birds, animals, reptile species.

Sacred groves represent the last remnants of native biodiversity against the onslaught of clearing forests for farming and settlement.

The concept of sacred groves dates back to preagricultural, hunting and gathering societies. Even today, they serve as a source of seeds for endemic plant species including rare and threatened endemic plants. They still harbour rare and endangered animal, birds and insects species. The trees hold the soil avoiding soil erosion and surface water run-off. It also ensures that the water bodies like streams, rivers, ponds, lakes and wells get year-round supply of water. This happens because the rainwater falling on the soil does not fly away. It gets absorbed in the soil of the jungle and flows underground slowly providing the water supply to these sources.

Transpiration from the leaves of the trees reduces the humidity and temperature locally creating a microclimate which is very useful for many organisms.

Under the name of ‘Development’ many sacred groves have been destroyed. Whatever remaining still represent our cultural and importantly ecological heritage hence must be protected. Forest Acts will not be able to protect the jungles, its our behavior which will…

Above video gives just a glimpse of what we are talking about here.

Everyone can watch it, think and act! – even Save Ourselves!

Video Credit: The News Minute

Note: Please note that above video is not any kind of advertisement or support to any individual or organization. Our only intention is to convey the environment message to viewers through the video.