Swedish researchers have launched a scathing attack on the scientific credentials of an international advisory body on biodiversity, warning that its effectiveness is being undermined by the increasing dominance of politicians and professional negotiators. Their concerns about the work of the scientific body that advises the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are widely shared, the convention's own executive secretary, Ahmed Djoghlaf, has told Nature.

Many traditional conservation ethics of people directly or indirectly protect forest patches by dedicating them to local deities. Such forest pockets, referred to as sacred groves, are more or less small to large chunk of traditionally maintained near virgin forests protected on socio cultural grounds. Named differently in different states of India, these groves are mainly concentrated in tribal areas and are managed by local people for various purposes.

To conserve the representative ecosystems, a Biosphere Reserve program is being implemented. Ten biodiversity rich areas of the country have been designated as Biosphere Reserves applying the UNESCO/MAB criteria.

This article employs multiple methods to uncover how competing conceptions of nature, manifest through discourses of nature, influence ideas of how the reserve should be managed.

This study envisages the estimation of floral wealth of the sacred groves and its role in conservation. The study was conducted in sacred groves of coastal and lowland regions of Thrissur District of Kerala.