Hundreds of trees are protected as living natural monuments and are associated with wisdom and immortality in India. In Uttarakhand, some trees hold special cultural and religious significance like peepal, banyan, mango etc. It was at the International Forestry Conference at Rome in 1926 that Protection of Natural Features were discussed. In 1929 Sir H.G. Champion, Silviculturist, Forest Research Institute mooted the idea of preservation of elite trees along with establishment of Preservation Plots and resolution No. 22 was passed.

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.

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.

Need for identification and value assessment of agro-biodiversity heritage sites in the context of recent Acts has been highlighted to facilitate conservation and evolution of sustainable agriculture.

Visitors to Vrindavan and the fabled land of Lord Krishna, called Braj Bhoomi, are often taken aback by its ramshackle, dirty condition. It has dried up ancient water bodies or kunds, denuded forests and lots of garbage. It also has a dreaded mining mafia running around with dynamite, digging holes and blowing up sacred hills.

Place-specific cultural institutions regulate the relationship between coffee planters and the natural world in the Kodagu district of the Western Ghats, a global biodiversity hotspot in South India. Many planters have retained native trees for shade on their plantations, such that these cultivated areas, together with formal protected areas and community-managed sacred groves, constitute a mostly contiguous forested landscape across the district.

A thorough exploration for the rare, endemic and threatened species in the sacred groves of Kanyakumari District in Southern Western Ghats is lacking. The tropical climate and soil conditions coupled with the religious and social beliefs enabled these groves to harbour a large number of RET species, which are on the verge of extinction. (Sep 2007)

Sacred groves are small tracts of near-virgin forests protected by the indigenous communities. Being the storehouses of medicinal plants, these are a unique Indian way of in-situ conservation of biodiversity. This paper deals with an account of the role played by Chilkigarh sacred grove in West Bengal in the conservation of regional ethnomedicinal trees. (Sep 2007)