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Shonil A. Bhagwat shonilbhagwat@hotmail.com		Cheppudira G. Kushalappa

The sacred groves tradition in India has received considerable attention from researchers – anthropologists, biologists, ecologists, economists, historians, and sociologists alike.  The sacred groves of Kodagu (Devarakadus) in the Western Ghats are no exception.

This article discusses the necessity of a landscape approach in the analysis and presents the results based on an empirical study on diversity of trees, birds and mushrooms in a South Kodagu landscape.  The study highlights that sacred groves of Kodagu cannot be looked at in isolation – the landscape that surrounds them is not only crucial in determining biodiversity found within these forest patches, but also has important consequences for their conservation management.  A strategy for biodiversity conservation in Kodagu is suggested with an emphasis to consider the religious significance of sacred groves along with the integrity of the protected area and the biodiversity-friendly management of coffee plantations.

One of the first documentation of the occurrence of sacred groves in Kodagu can be found in Brandis’ (1897) paper on Indian Forestry.  Brandis mentions,

“Very little has been published regarding the sacred groves in India, but they are, or rather were, very numerous.  I have found them in nearly all provinces.  As instances I may mention the Garo and Khasia hills which I visited in 1879; the Devara Kadus or sacred groves of Coorg [now Kodagu] which I became acquainted with in 1868, and the hill ranges of Salem district in the Madras presidency examined by me in 1882.”

Although Brandis’ approach to documentation of sacred groves is at best a travelogue, his pioneering observations of the forest patches protected by local people have set the scene for sacred groves research in Kodagu, if not in the entire Indian Subcontinent.  These numerous forest patches have fascinated researchers since then.  During our work, we have estimated that there is at least one sacred grove for every 300 ha of land in Kodagu (Kushalappa & Bhagwat 2001).  Although the total geographical area they occupy is insignificant (less than 2% of the total tree covered area of the district), the mere density of sacred groves in the Kodagu landscape is remarkable.  The Forest Department of Karnataka State has enumerated 1241 sacred groves in the entire district (Kushalappa & Kushalappa 1996), 500 of which are in the southern part of the district, Virajpet taluk , (Figure 1), where we carried out most of our fieldwork.

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Kushalappa & Kushalappa (1996) have taken a systematic approach to studying sacred groves of Kodagu.  As part of a study commissioned through the Karnataka State Forest Department, extensive field surveys were carried out in sacred groves in order to assess tree diversity, regeneration status and growing stock.  In addition, the study also attempted to measure the quality of forest in adjacent protected areas in order to compare how sacred groves fare in comparison with the nearby unbroken forest. This work has laid foundation for the subsequent studies of sacred groves in Kodagu.  Chandrakanth & Nagaraja (1997), from a socio-economic point of view, have highlighted why maintaining sacred forest patches for their religious significance is important. While they have emphasised the benefits of this tradition, they have also stressed that the tradition is under constant economic pressure, and the forests in sacred groves suffer from the risk of degradation.  Kalam (1996), in his socio-historical study, has found historical evidence for degradation of forest quality in sacred groves and supported his argument by presenting case studies of sacred groves where such degradation has occurred.  A recent study by Garcia (2002) has emphasised that cultivation of lucrative cash crops has been detrimental to sacred groves tradition and new management rules are necessary.  Based on his surveys in sixteen sacred groves, one privately owned forest and the continuous protected area, Garcia has claimed that sacred groves do not play any role in biodiversity conservation (Coffeeland News 2003).  Garcia et al. (2003) have also argued that contrary to the romantic and idealized image that has been portrayed in the literature, sacred groves in Kodagu are not remnants of pristine forest; nevertheless, their conservation is important for social and cultural reasons rather than biological or ecological.

While the focus of research so far has been on sacred groves alone, the importance of tree-covered nature of the landscape, in which these forest patches have survived, has been overlooked.  As a result, the findings give a rather myopic view of sacred groves in Kodagu and make one believe that sacred groves are biodiversity-impoverished (due to biogeographical processes) and degraded (due to their intensive use by local people) forest fragments.  While this argument may be true at patch-scale, but at landscape scale native tree cover in coffee plantations plays a vital role in maintaining biodiversity within sacred groves.  Therefore, the maintenance of this native tree cover has important implications for biodiversity conservation.

A recent publication by Ramakrishnan (2000) has made commendable effort to bring together a multidisciplinary team of Kodagu researchers.  While this publication provides an useful source of information about Kodagu landscape, it has fallen short of identifying links between different studies – for example, Moppert (2000) has succinctly presented the effects of expansion of coffee plantations on landscape changes, but has failed to link her study to that of Kalam’s (2000), commenting on modern-day encroachments on sacred groves by neighbouring coffee plantations; and that of Bonn’s (2000) explaining socio-economic dimension of encroachments on sacred groves.  

Many researchers tend to reach conclusions about “biodiversity” in sacred groves although their study is often limited to diversity of trees, or at best trees and other angiospermic plants.  Garcia’s claim that sacred groves do not play any role in biodiversity conservation (Coffeeland News 2003) is, therefore, unsubstantiated.  Not only are the diversity patterns of trees uncorrelated with those of other life forms (Bhagwat 2002), but also without rigorous comparison of diversity of multiple taxa in sacred groves and in protected area, it is unreasonable to comment on the value of sacred groves for biodiversity conservation.  In this article, the patterns of diversity in trees, birds and mushrooms are presented. It shows that there is no congruence. Also, it emphaises that sacred groves are important storehouses of non-timber forest products (including a variety of mushrooms), useful for the livelihoods of some local communities.

While sacred groves may be impoverished in endemic species of trees as compared to the protected area (Garcia et al. 2003), their presence in the otherwise manmade and intensively cultivated Kodagu landscape may mean that they have significant conservation value, such as for species that are useful for the livelihoods of some local communities.  In other words, presence of sacred groves in the landscape is an insurance policy for maintaining the integrity of the adjacent protected area. While ecological patterns of species distribution in sacred forest patches are important, sacred groves cannot be looked at in isolation from the surrounding landscape, a strategy for landscape-level conservation in Kodagu is proposed in this article.

Sacred groves in Kodagu are patches of forest in a landscape that once-upon-a-time might have had continuous tree cover. Their sizes range from a fraction of a hectare to a few tens of hectares.  The smallest sacred grove in our study area was just 0.2 hectares, while the largest was 48.1 hectares in size.  In addition to biogeographical processes, complex human–nature interactions have shaped the modern Kodagu landscape – there are tall forests; forest patches; tree-covered land where understorey is cleared for planting cash crops; and open paddy fields.  This means that an approach that recognises the characteristics of the complex landscape matrix is necessary for studying Kodagu landscape.  Heuristic frameworks in biogeography, such the equilibrium theory of island biogeography (MacArthur & Wilson 1967) predicts, based on the observations of oceanic islands, how biodiversity would be distributed in patches of various sizes and at various distances from one another.  Metapopulation Theory (Hanski & Gilpin 1991) predicts population dynamics of species that occupy, breed, undergo local extinction within patches and immigrate between patches.  However, one of the main limitations of applying these theories to terrestrial landscapes is that they do not recognise the role that landscape matrix between patches plays in determining biodiversity within patches.  Landscape ecology (Forman & Gordon 1986), with its ability to recognise the role of structure, composition, configuration and complexity of the intervening landscape matrix provides a more suitable framework for studying biodiversity in sacred groves.  This is of particular relevance in Kodagu, where the sacred forest patches are surrounded by tree covered landscape matrix in form of shade coffee plantations that easily allow movement (of mobile organisms such as birds, butterflies, small mammals, and even large mammals such as elephants where they exist) and dispersal (of immobile organism such as trees, other plants and mushrooms) between sacred groves.  This means that a study of biodiversity within patches cannot be separated from biodiversity that exists between patches; consideration of the native tree cover in coffee plantations and its role in maintaining biodiversity is, therefore, essential.

Sampling was done in the localities along the boundary of the protected area – the Brahmagiri Wildlife Sanctuary in south-western Kodagu.  The total geographical area of our study area was about 60,000 ha (600 sq. km).  Coffee plantations occupied about 60% of the area, the protected area occupied about 30% of the area, and sacred groves occupied less than two percent of the total geographical area.  The rest eight percent was occupied by paddy fields and other non-tree covered land uses.  Sacred groves were at variable distances from the nearest boundary of the protected area and from one another.  Coffee plantations were ubiquitous outside the protected area and in the landscape between sacred groves.  After initial reconnaissance surveys, 58 localities (Table 1) were selected for sampling in the Virajpet taluk of Kodagu.  Twenty-five sacred groves, 23 coffee plantations and 10 localities within the protected area were sampled for trees, birds and mushrooms in 1999 and 2000.  The sampling scheme adopted here (Figure 2) was designed for providing a framework for inventories aimed at rapid assessment of biodiversity in more than one taxon.  In the present study, the sampling localities were very variable in size – the protected area was uninterrupted and large; sacred groves were patchy; and coffee plantations, although contiguous, were composed of small individual land-holdings.  In order to overcome the problem of variable sizes and differences in the biological and ecological characteristics of organisms in question, emphasis was on sampling randomly the same number of individuals (observations in the case of birds and mushrooms) at each site rather than sampling equal areas.  An individual (for trees) is an ecologically more meaningful unit than an area (Condit et al. 1996).  For assessing diversity of birds, numbers of observations are more meaningful for comparison than measures such as the time spent recording, which will result in different numbers of observations depending upon the time of the day when the sampling is carried out (Bibby 1998).  Rapid assessment methods that make use of morphological characteristics of an organism for species identification (morphospecies, but referred to as ‘species’ for brevity in the rest of this article) are suitable for measuring diversity in a group such as mushrooms, for which shortage of expertise is compounded by the long time required to sort records down to the level of species (e.g. Balmford et al. 2000).

Table 1 – List of sampling localities – sacred groves, continuous protected area, and coffee plantations in Kodagu. The localities are identified by the abbreviated names of villages in which they occurred (Bg – Beeruga; Bk – Badagarakeri; Br – Begur; Bt – Bettoli; Hg – Heggala; Ht – Halligattu; Ic – Ichur; Kb – Kolathodu-Bygodu; Kd – Kunda; Kt – Kottoli; Ku – Kuttandi; Pd – Poradu; Pl – Palangala; Th – Theralu; To – Thora; Ts – T-Shettigeti; Vb – Vanbhadrakali-Hathur; Wn – West Nemmale); the number at the end of each locality name represents the sampling reference number. 

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At each locality, trees were sampled before birds and mushrooms.  Prior to visiting the sampling locality (for tree sampling), random numbers, in multiples of five, were generated.  A base line was selected at each locality (marked by 'St' and 'Fn' in Figure 2), which often ran along a natural or man-made linear landscape feature (e.g. a cart track, path, fence, boundary, stream) across the extent of the area.  Starting points of individual transects were located on the base line in the same sequence as the random numbers.  For example, if the first random number was 100, transect number one was placed at 100 m from the starting point along the base line on a randomly chosen side – left or right.  After completion of sampling along the first transect, the second transect was placed at the distance equal to the second random number from the starting point.  The process was repeated until a sufficient number of trees had been sampled at each locality.  The base line was demarcated by painting arrows on adjacent trees using blue oil paint which allowed the relocation of the line easily when the sampling locality was revisited in order to sample birds and mushrooms.  The direction of the base line was usually along the cardinal directions.  The vegetation transects were established exactly along a North-South line if the base line was roughly East-West and vice versa.  Thus, at each locality, one base line and several transects running parallel to each other and perpendicular to the base line provided a framework for sampling.  The start and the finish of each transect was marked and all trees ≥ 10 cm dbh falling within the boundaries of the transects were marked with blue paint.  Sampling for birds and mushrooms was carried out later using the same framework.  In order to make the sampling design compatible for inventories of all three taxa under investigation and to consider a possibility of re-measuring diversity for monitoring in future, this sampling framework was found to be the most suitable.

Spatial information is central to landscape ecological research.  However, availability of detailed land use information is often problematic.  Although detailed land use data are becoming increasingly available thanks to the modern remote sensing technology, they are expensive (Nagendra & Gadgil 1998).  Furthermore, such information is not sufficiently detailed, nor are the Survey of India topographic maps (scale – 1:50,000 or 1:25,000).  The problems in obtaining spatial information in India are further compounded by government regulations – many maps are restricted to military use and difficult to obtain.  Village land survey maps (scale – 1:7920) are locally available from Land Revenue departments and relatively easy to obtain, but often very old, which were used as referenece maps.  Forty-two land survey maps (scale – 1:7920) were verified using GPS surveys, and digitised using a GIS software package in order to generate a landscape map(Figure 3).  The characteristics of the landscape surrounding sacred groves were measured. Using geographical information systems (GIS) it was possible to measure patch areas of sacred groves, their isolation from the protected area; and measures of integrity, heterogeneity and complexity of the surrounding landscape matrix.  In addition to the landscape configuration, forest stand configuration was measured (Table 2).

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Table 2 – The variables of landscape structure and their ecological interpretations.

 (A) Variables of landscape configuration 

Note: AT, NPT and LET were measured for 250, 500, 750 and 1000 m buffers. 

(B) Variables of forest stand configuration 

Hurlbert’s (1971) rarefaction method was employed to calculate the expected number of species (diversity) in a sample of ‘n’ individuals or observations selected at random.  A technique called Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) was used for constructing multivariate models that explained, using measures of landscape structure, the diversity of trees, birds and mushrooms within sampling localities.  CHAID analysis produces a tree diagram(Figure 4), which has a ‘tree-trunk’ progressively split into smaller and smaller ‘branches’ that terminate in small groups – ‘leaves’.  The initial tree-trunk is made of all samples in the pool.  A series of independent variables (such as patch size, isolation, landscape integrity, heterogeneity and complexity) is assessed in order to determine whether splitting the sample-pool based on the independent variables leads to a statistically significant discrimination of the dependent variable.  The most significant of the available independent variables defines the first split of the sample that appears in the diagram as the first branch of the tree-trunk.  For each new group formed, the next most significant variable is identified (which may include the independent variable used earlier) and the respective branch is split further.  This process is repeated until significant splits are obtained.  The terminal leaves cannot be split further using any significant independent variable.  The groups obtained are maximally different from one another (Huba 2000).

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CHAID analyses gave a good preliminary idea of the measures of landscape structure that may be responsible for determining diversity of trees, birds and mushrooms.  For example, how far a sacred grove was from the protected area was found to be important for explaining tree diversity, while how much tree cover is available in the surrounding landscape explained best the diversity of birds.  For diversity of mushrooms, the most important variable appeared to be the complexity of landscape surrounding sacred groves, which was also correlated with the measures of humidity in the air (Bhagwat 2002).  The measures of landscape structure were then examined in further detail in order to explore the effects on communities and species of trees, birds and mushrooms (Table 3).

 Table 3 – The effects of long-term landscape modification and land management on trees, birds and mushrooms in Kodagu; an asterisk denotes a significant (P < 0.05) difference; the sacred groves are abbreviated as ‘Sacred’, the protected area as ‘Protected’, and coffee plantations as ‘Coffee’. 

A total of 215 tree species, 86 bird species and 163 mushroom species were recorded in the protected area, sacred groves and coffee plantations.  Their distribution in the three land use types is shown in Figure 5. Species that were found only in a single type are referred to as ‘unique’, those shared by any two of the three types are ‘shared’ and those found in all three types are referred to as ‘ubiquitous’.  Forty-five percent of all tree species were ubiquitous, 26% shared, and 29% unique. Nearly 40% of bird species were ubiquitous, 35% shared, and 25% unique.  About 39% of all mushroom species were ubiquitous, 21% shared, and 40% unique – 75% of which were unique only to sacred groves.  The expected distribution of unique species was calculated by adjusting the species numbers to the sample sizes in the respective land use types.  The observed number of unique tree species was higher than expected in the protected area but lower in the sacred groves (χ² test, χ² = 6.992, df = 2, P = 0.0195).  Coffee plantations had nearly the same number of observed and expected tree species.  The observed numbers of unique bird species were not significantly different to the expected numbers (χ² test, χ² = 2.631, df = 2, P = 0.0977) in any of the three land use types.  The distribution of mushroom species between the three land use types was significantly different from expected (χ² test, χ² = 26.262, df = 2, P < 0.0001) due to the high numbers found in sacred groves.

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The distribution of ecological groups of trees, birds and mushrooms; as well the distribution of species of conservation importance are listed in Table 3.  The intensity of land management (protected areas were considered as the least intensively managed land use; sacred groves were considered to have moderate management intensity and the coffee plantations were considered to have the highest intensity of management) caused an increase in deciduous trees and a decrease in evergreen trees; an increase in non-forest dwelling birds and a decrease in forest dwellers; an increase in the frequency of mushrooms fruiting on litter and a decrease in the frequency of mushrooms fruiting on wood.  Large-bodied birds were more abundant in coffee plantations and small-bodied birds in sacred groves; birds with low fecundity were more abundant and those with high fecundity less abundant in the protected area; the understorey insectivorous birds were less abundant in coffee plantations and nectarivorous birds more abundant in sacred groves.  Mycorrhizal mushrooms were more frequent in sacred groves.  The useful species of trees and those with medicinal properties were more abundant in sacred groves; and useful species of mushrooms and those with medicinal properties were also more frequent in sacred groves.  While endemic trees were more abundant in the protected area, threatened trees were more abundant in sacred groves.

While habitat specialist, endemic species might have been lost from forest patches in the managed landscape of Kodagu, modern land uses harbour populations of useful species (cf. Boraiah et al., 2003).  Traditional systems of conservation are still valuable for offering protection to certain elements of diversity including endemic and threatened species.  On the other hand, species such as those endemic to the Western Ghats may require large unbroken forest in the protected area.  The resource availability in the already degraded landscape in the form of useful species may be important in removing the pressure of resource use from the protected area to the traditionally managed land, thus achieving a better conservation of a strictly protected area.  A combination of approaches is therefore necessary for conservation of biodiversity in Kodagu; maintaining the integrity of the three land use types studied is critical for the conservation of Kodagu landscape.  While the long-term human use has caused landscape degradation, the protected area is still relatively intact.  It accounts for the protection of species with special habitat requirements – 63% of trees species unique to the protected area are endemic, in contrast to only 10% of those found in sacred groves and coffee plantations, but not in the protected area.  At the same time, sacred groves and coffee plantations together have successfully protected trees useful to the local people – 84% of the tree species found in sacred groves and coffee plantations, but not in the protected area, produce useful non-timber forest products.

The protected area is instrumental in protecting many species of conservation importance – the Western Ghats’ endemic trees, birds with low fecundities and possibly mushrooms with co-evolved interdependencies such as the one found exclusively growing on elephant dung in the Theralu and Thora forest reserves (personal observation).  Conservation of such species cannot take place without the protected area.  The removal of coffee plantations from the Kodagu landscape or the replacement of native shade trees with exotics would result in rapid depletion of biodiversity.  The disappearance of trees in coffee plantations that are useful and have medicinal value to the local people would result in resource-use pressure on sacred groves and the protected area.  The matrix of coffee plantations is likely to change in future, in species composition, unless dwindling populations of native trees are replaced by proactive planting.  In the present study, sacred groves were found to be situated in a variety of habitats – some were adjacent to water-logged paddy fields, others were on hill-slopes and still others on tree-covered hill tops.  These patches protect a greater variety of habitats than a single protected area would (e.g. Quinn & Harrison 1988; Lapin & Barnes 1995).  The loss of sacred groves would result in the decline of landscape-level heterogeneity that these patches provide.

A study of butterfly diversity in the southern Western Ghats found that about 46% of the butterfly species are in low abundance in a few patchily distributed locations.  Species such as the Travancore Evening Brown (Parantirrhoea marshalli Wood-Mason) or the Malabar Banded Swallowtail (Papilio liomedon Moore) are restricted to low elevation evergreen forests in the southern Western Ghats that are excluded from the protected area network (Soubadra Devy & Ganeshaiah 2001 pers. comm.).  In the present study, tree species such as Actinodaphne lawsonii Gamble; Hopea ponga (Dennst.) Mabberley; Madhuca neriifolia (Moon) H.J. lam; and Syzygium zeylanicum (L.) DC., that are listed as threatened in their home ranges (FRLHT 1999; IUCN 2000), were unique to sacred groves.  Other threatened species such as Michelia champaca L. and endemic species such as Pittosporum dasycaulon Miq. were found in sacred groves and coffee plantations but not in the protected area.  While these species are restricted to the low-lying areas, the current protected areas along the western hilly region of the district do not include their preferred habitats.  In addition, bird species such as the Loten’s sunbird (Nectarinia lotenia L.), an endemic, and the Nilgiri Flycatcher (Eumyias albicaudata (Jerdon)), an endemic and threatened bird, were restricted to sacred groves and coffee plantations.  Forty-nine out of 163 species of mushrooms were unique to sacred groves.  It is likely that the landscape outside protected area in Kodagu shelters species of some groups of organisms that cannot be protected within the formal protected area network (Bhagwat 1998), and conservation of such species will require protection of land outside the protected area.  Although we acknowledge that the examples above are only illustrative and more species-specific data and intensive field research are necessary to determine occurrences of individual species and to substantiate the findings of the present study, these examples offer basic information on which future studies can be based; our investigation has provided a practical directive to the sacred groves research in Kodagu.

It would appear that Kodagu has been successful in maintaining a balance between conservation and development through the formal (state-initiated conservation) and the informal (community-based conservation) systems, besides a comparatively thriving coffee economy (private enterprise) that makes the region prosperous.  However, currently, there are threats to the integrity of the protected area as well as of sacred groves and coffee plantations.

Unplanned forestry activities and illegal smuggling of timber has made the current system of protection of the forest reserve vulnerable.  Despite a moratorium on logging in hilly areas imposed by the Indian government since 1983 (MoEF, 1985) timber is still illegally extracted from these forests.  Furthermore, for cultural reasons, gun ownership is legal in Kodagu (Ponnappa, 1997), which has exacerbated illegal hunting.  While the government has always been the custodian of the sacred forests, the local people have had a say in their management (see Haller, 1910).  The extent and quality of the woodland in these sacred forests is reported to have suffered due to their misappropriation under the ‘open access’ regime of the revenue department (Kalam, 1996), in accordance with the ‘tragedy of the commons’ model described by Hardin (1968).  This has been attributed to the careless policy changes and unprecedented tenure transfer (from the Forest to the Revenue Department) between government departments resulting in the confusion among local people about the actual ownership and exact boundaries of sacred forests (Kalam, 2000).  In addition, the unobtrusive temples in sacred forests have been replaced by sophisticated concrete constructions (Chandran et al., 1998) in the process of Sanskritization (transformation of local belief system and its homogenisation with the main stream Hindu religious practice).  This has caused decline in the quality of vegetation within sacred forests.  After coffee trade was privatised in the mid-1990s, the small landowners were able to sell their produce on the free market making the venture more profitable.  Subsequently, the Human Development Index (Narayana, 1999) of Kodagu increased far beyond the rest of India.  In order to maintain the increased standard of living, valuable native tree species were illegally felled for timber.  In Kodagu, a growing demand for coffee on the free market encouraged planters to intensify coffee cultivation resulting in modification of forest wherever circumvention of local rules and regulations was possible.  Simultaneously, paddy fields were converted into ginger, banana and areca nut plantations.  In addition, sacred forests were encroached by landowners in their neighbourhoods (Bonn, 2000). 

A three-prong strategy for the conservation of biodiversity in Kodagu is proposed.  This includes preventative measures for activities that result in the modification and supportive ones for those that achieve conservation, so as to accomplish the maintenance of biodiversity at the landscape level. 

Prevention of hunting and timber-smuggling from the forest reserve 

While Akbar Sha (1987) and Forest Survey of India (1995) have mentioned the role of the forest reserve in protecting the populations of large mammals, illegal hunting and timber smuggling are the two activities that currently pose the greatest threat to the forest reserve. The following three solutions are proposed. 

(1) Control of illegal hunting and logging

Currently there are regulations designed to prevent hunting and logging – the moratorium on logging since 1983 and the Wildlife (Protection) Act amended in 1991.  However, the Forest Department has insufficient manpower to police illegal activities because of the vast expanse of the forest reserve.  It is essential to resurvey and to consolidate the boundaries of the forest reserve as the first step.  Along with a strong legislation at the state level, governments should develop and implement innovative incentives to interest local communities in forest stewardship (Gadgil, 1992; Alcorn, 1996). The latest developments in India, the Biodiversity Act, 2002 and the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, NBSAP (2004) that comply with the international initiatives such as CBD, TRIPS (GATT) and CITES are important steps. The co-operation in preventing and monitoring illegal forest exploitation should be linked to concrete benefits (Glastra, 1999).  Currently, there is a practice of recruiting members of the local community as temporary ‘forest watchers’ in Kodagu in return for small monetary compensation.  The government should introduce more secure employment as incentive for the qualified local inhabitants to work as guards and officers in the Forest Department.  In order to secure the forest reserve from illegal logging, other measures such as the certification of timber should be enforced. 

(2) Control of recreational hunting by local people

The depletion of wildlife is partly attributable to recreational hunting by local people.  It has been a common experience that management systems are likely to fail if there are changes in technologies, such as the introduction of guns (Redford, 1992), although such changes are inevitable when there is technological revolution in the world outside.  One of the ways for tackling this problem could be to implement changes in the legislation for unrestricted licensing of guns in Kodagu.  The licensing legislation should be able to recognise those who are in real need of guns for self-defence and subsistence. 

(3) Alternative sources of timber for local people

Jennings et al. (2000) have argued that the only viable strategy for conservation of Mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla King) forests in the Brazilian Amazon is to find sustainable livelihoods for rural populations.  In Kodagu, unless local people have access to timber, conservation of the rest of the forest area cannot be effectively implemented.  The coffee plantations in Kodagu are a valuable source of timber and non-timber forest products, and will continue to be so if managed responsibly.  Trees do not regenerate in coffee plantations because of intensive land management, thus coffee plantations are likely to change in future, in tree species composition.  Therefore, proactive planting of native timber trees by coffee plantation owners is essential. 

Maintaining the integrity of coffee plantations 

Larson & Bromley (1990) have suggested that when market prices are exogenous and do not reflect local scarcity, intensified agricultural production to meet subsistence needs can lead to resource degradation.  In Kodagu, the privatisation of coffee market has had exactly this effect.  The following three measures are proposed in order to maintain the integrity of coffee plantations.

(1) Revitalisation of co-operative institutions

The co-operative institutions such as The Coffee Board that used to exist in the late 1990s are now defunct.  The privatisation of coffee market and modification of the native tree cover have advanced hand-in-hand because the planters look at valuable native trees as an alternative source of income when coffee prices dwindle.  Co-operative institutions are necessary to regulate coffee prices in the domestic market as well as to bargain for good prices so that small planters have a stable income.  In this way, there will be fewer fluctuations in coffee prices, an assured income for small planters and control of the depletion of native trees in Kodagu. 

(2) Disincentives for planting exotic trees and support for planting native trees

Evidence form Latin America suggests that although shaded coffee plantations help to preserve biodiversity (Greenberg et al., 1997) a recent trend among planters, of replacing native trees with exotics, has been motivated by increased coffee yields per hectare.  In Kodagu better irrigation facilities have allowed farmers to fell native trees (which retain moisture in the plantations due to their dense foliage) and replace them with exotics (which often have sparse canopies).  Trees such as Silver Oak (Grevillea robusta Cunn.) have straight boles, which can be easily used to train black pepper (Piper nigrum L.) vines, an important source of additional income for coffee planters.  A system of sanctions – in form of higher taxes and no subsidies – on planters who use exotic trees in coffee plantations (and thereby violate ecological consideration in plantations management) could be enforced in order to prevent the native tree cover from dwindling further.  On the other hand, plantation owners could be encouraged to maintain tree cover of native species because of its benefits to wildlife.  In order to facilitate this, the government should make available saplings of native shade trees from the State Forest Department nurseries.  The government can develop incentive systems by way of cash rewards, reduced taxes, greater subsidies etc. for those landowners who employ ecological consideration in plantations management. 

(3) ‘Biodiversity-friendly’ coffee cultivation

It has been shown in South America that if the local landowners reach some basic level of economic security, they become interested in ecological sustainability, long term environmental planning and biodiversity conservation (Southgate & Clark, 1993).  Gobbi (2000) has suggested that in El Salvador, for biodiversity conservation in shade coffee plantations to be viable, incentives to small farmers from the government are necessary.  These could be in form of tax reductions, loan facilities, subsidies and a secure market for biodiversity-friendly coffee.  For such cultivation practices to be successful in Kodagu, it is necessary that the government takes interest in the issues of small-scale farmers in order to encourage them to help biodiversity conservation.  Furthermore, certification of coffee plantations by setting standards for sustainable management can encourage planters to grow coffee in a biodiversity-friendly manner.  The recent efforts in Kodagu of organic and biodynamic coffee cultivation are right steps in this direction.  In addition to this, the market access of certified products should be facilitated by specific government policies and appropriate legislation; and market-driven mechanisms i.e. effective marketing of ‘biodiversity friendly’ coffee in the international market can complement the policies and the legislation. 

Participatory management and conservation of sacred forests 

Miranda & LaPalme (1997) suggest that if there is a strong tradition of community-based ownership or customary rights, governments should take advantage of such relationships for effective biodiversity conservation.  Despite the disputed effectiveness in biodiversity conservation, community-managed traditional reserves are one of the few mechanisms available that allow local groups to manage natural resources over the long term and to achieve a sustainable linkage between conservation and development (Brandon, 1997).  The following three steps can help in achieving better management of sacred forests. 

(1) Official recognition of sacred forest traditions

In modern-day India, although many traditions are eroding, a large number of sacred forests are still conserved through taboos and religious beliefs.  Chandrakanth et al. (1990) suggest that such sacred acts should be recognised by the government.  Bhatt & Kothari (1997) identify the incompleteness of the IUCN protected area categories and suggest an additional category, ‘Community Reserve’, that is appropriate in the Indian context.  It is recommended that such areas should be allocated mostly for the protection of traditional conservation practices, besides controls on limited resource use and protection against outside commercial forces.  While official recognition at the national and the international level is important for land-tenure security of sacred forests to the stakeholder communities, participation of local people in the management is also essential. 

(2) A system of rewards for effective protection and a mechanism for sharing of benefits

A large number of sacred forests in the southern part of Kodagu (study area) are still well protected.  Maintaining sacred forests is important to the local people as well as to the community outside (Chandrakanth & Nagaraja, 1997) because of the cultural and spiritual appeal that such landscapes have (Posey, 1998).  However, sacred forests are currently under threat of encroachment by coffee plantation owners.  In such a situation, a system of rewards may work for their effective protection (Gadgil & Rao, 1994).  The success of protection could be assessed periodically by a panel of impartial judges, and the village committees that are making sincere efforts at conserving their village sacred forests could be rewarded by the State (Chandrashekara & Sankar, 1998).  The funds thus generated will help local people to undertake development activities in villages.  Non-governmental organisations in Kodagu have a very good rapport with the local people.  Their involvement in co-ordinating the system of positive incentives is essential.  While the ownership of sacred forests should rest initially with the State Forest Department, in order to avoid idiosyncratic management decisions (such as misappropriation of land for other land uses) by individuals or committees, representatives from the local community should be involved in making decisions about access to the resources in such forests, so that no particular social group can monopolise their management.  Sacred forests are important resources for non-timber forest products.  Local people depend on them for fuelwood, green fodder, medicinal herbs and other livelihood necessities.  An organised system for harvesting, utilising and marketing such products is essential.  It should be recognised that the local people will not be able to operate entirely on their own – the State should, apart from facilitating their efforts and assisting with planning and management, oversee the smooth running by resolving conflicts among the local communities.  The profit generated from such enterprises should be shared equitably between the State and the local community.  There is an existing 90:10 resource sharing arrangement between local communities and the State forest department for dead and fallen trees.  Such efforts need to be complemented by appropriate legislation that can provide the necessary land-tenure security (such as devolution of ownership to those local village committees who have been successful in conservation of their sacred forests) and resource-use rights to local communities, while recognising local peoples’ rights as a precondition (see Chambers et al., 1989). 

(3) Towards joint planning and management

Khare et al. (2000) have found that foresters and villagers in some parts of India view Joint Forest Management (JFM) very differently – many forestry department officials see JFM primarily as a means of ensuring the rehabilitation of degraded forests, while village communities view it as a solution to the growing shortage of biomass, a means of obtaining the daily requirements of forest products and a way to increase income.  Therefore, it is necessary to bring foresters and villagers together to initiate dialogue and to reach agreement on the objectives of JFM of sacred forests.  Currently, JFM is not recognised as a way to manage government protected areas in India.  In Kodagu, no co-ordinated efforts have been undertaken by the government departments, communities and institutions to develop and implement conservation strategies for sacred groves (Gokhale et al., 2004).  The State Forest Department should explore ways in which the JFM philosophy could be used in managing the forest reserve in Kodagu. 

Recently, there have been some serious attempts in Kodagu at adapting JFM to the local socio-cultural setting – a scheme of joint forest planning and management of sacred forests, which was proposed through a public initiative, has been accepted by the government.  This scheme proposes to form a federation of sacred forest committees (who look after the management of local sacred forests), also consisting of local forest officers and community leaders.  In order to mediate the negotiations between foresters and villagers, impartial representatives from the local College of Forestry and active non-governmental organisations are also members of the committee and participate in meetings (Kushalappa et al., 2001).  Efforts such as this will be important in protecting the integrity of the cultural landscape in Kodagu.