Timber felling was a taboo in the kans ensuring their preservation through ages as in the  devarakadus of Coorg, devrais of Maharashtra and kavus of Kerala. The deities of most kans belong to the folk tradition of India and not to the Vedic tradition. To name a few from Karnataka malnadu are Choudamma, Rachamma, Jataka, Birappa, Bhutappa, Hulidevaru (tiger deity) etc. Occasionally are smaller groves called naagarabanas dedicated to the serpents.

b. Kans as safety forests: The kan forests, well preserved in pre-colonial landuse system, in many ways ensured safety and integrity of the rural landscapes of Western Ghats. From a landscape ecological point of view these in tact forest patches formed a mosaic with other elements such as secondary forests, scrub, shifting cultivation fallows, grasslands, farms and water bodies to enhance landscape heterogeneity holding highest amount of species diversity. As safety forests they performed the following functions as well:

1. Watershed protection: The kans are often found to be associated with water sources like springs or ponds. The Government of Bombay (1923) highlighted the watershed value of the kans of Uttara Kannada:

Throughout the area, both in Sirsi and Siddapur, there are few tanks and few deep wells and the people depend much on springs …. If a heavy evergreen forest is felled in the dry season the flow of water from any spring it feeds increases rapidly though no rainwater may have fallen for some months.

2. Keeping favourable microclimate: Wingate (1888), the forest settlement officer for Uttara Kannada noted that the kans were of great economic and climatic importance as they favoured the existence of springs, and perennial streams, and generally indicated the proximity of valuable spice gardens, which derived from them both shade and moisture- a scenario, that holds good to this day if the kan is good state.
3. Kans for fire protection: Brandis and Grant (1868), in their report on the kans of Sorab observed that during dry months jungle fires swept through every part of the dry forest which was composed of deciduous trees and bamboo. But, “No fires enter the evergreen forest, leaves, branches and fallen trees accumulate and gradually decay, forming ultimately a rich surface layer of vegetable mould.” Not aware of the village communities’ stakes in preservation of these kan safety forests, Brandis and Grant wondered: “why a certain locality should be covered with evergreen, and another in its immediate vicinity with dry forest.” The degradation of evergreen kans in Shimoga district has increased from the rising threats from forest fires in the recent years.
4. Protection from soil erosion: Rain forests are considered fragile places, their collapse in highlands and slopes often associated with soil erosion, compaction and rockiness. The kans -understood as heavy evergreen forests, the ground covered with “a rich surface layer of vegetable mould” (Brandis and Grant, 1868) with very sharply defined limits, alternating with bare grounds covered with laterite was a common spectacle of malnadu area. “The real cause of this alternation of bare ground and densely wooded patches is to be found in the laterite formation. Wherever the hard bed of laterite is near the surface, wood refuses to grow” (Gazetteer of Mysore-Shimoga, 1920). Further “In the kans the soil is rich and deep, but in most of the taluks (of Shimoga) the soil is hard and shallow, with much laterite” (-ibid-).
5. Kans for subsistence: Despite grain crops and gardens, the malnadu people lived at subsistence level, with much dependence on forests. Dependence on kans was mainly for wild pepper, cinnamon (both were traded commodities), edible fruits and seeds, medicinal plants, toddy and palm sugar from Caryota palm (bainy) etc. Combined with a regulated form of hunting the common people, by and large, lived in harmony with the rain forests. The landscape heterogeneity of grasslands and forests (including the well preserved kans) would have favoured rich wildlife and many people hunted for subsistence. The kans would act as buffers especially during times of drought and famines by providing not only water but also various kinds of food from the wild.
6. Biodiversity conservation: Kans ranging in size from part of an hectare to few hundred hectares each and protected from time immemorial, may be considered as the best samples of climax forests of the region. These sacred groves often served as good refuges for arboreal birds and mammals, especially primates, and many other denizens of deep forests. Thus Kathalekan in Siddapur taluk of Uttara Kannada is home to the rare rain forest habitat  called Myristica swamps with their threatened flora that include Myristica magnifica, Gymnacranthera canarica, Dipterocarpus indicus, Semecarpus kathalekanensis, Syzygium travancoricum etc. Karikan in the Honavar taluk of Uttara Kannada has a rare and magnificent stand of the climax forest tree D. indicus. S. travancoricum survives today in Mathigar kanand in Aralihonda of Siddapur, which are sacred groves, small fragments of around one hectare each, in the midst of otherwise an agricultural landscape.  When a 2.5 sq. km area of Kathalekan was surveyed about 35 species of frogs and their relatives were discovered there, a number that is equal to almost the entire amphibian population of Maharashtra State. Katalkean and its immediate vicinity harbor the northernmost population of the Endangered primate Lion-tailed macaque.
7. Care of pepper vines in the kans:  Black pepper (Piper nigrum) was an important item of trade through the west coast port for over 2000 years (Saletore, 1973). Pepper grows wild in the wet evergreen forests of Western Ghats and is also cultivated in the gardens. A 16th century queen of Gersoppa was popularly known as ‘Pepper Queen” to the Portuguese (Campbell, 1883). From Buchanan’s writings it becomes clear that in at least in some of the kans of coastal Uttara Kannada the villagers used to take care of the wild pepper. Buchanan understood these as ‘myanasu canu’ meaning ‘menasu kanu’ or kans with black pepper. Wild pepper required human attention for better yield.   Such kans with lofty evergreen trees were seen in the otherwise much denuded coastal hills. The practice of tending to wild pepper in the kans may be older to pepper cultivation in the arecanut  gardens (Chandran and Gadgil, 1993). The amount of pepper produced from kans, at one time was said to be “very great”.
8. Land tenure: The village communities of Karnataka malndu enjoyed various kinds of forest privileges in the pre-colonial times. They had as such no rights to claim forest lands as their own. The kans were entered in the revenue records as assessed lands held in regular tenure by wargdars or landholders in the vicinity. These wargdars paid certain taxes or warg to the state for use of the kans (for mainly collection of non-wood produce). Some of the kans of Sorab were ‘unoccupied’ and yielded no revenue at the time of the survey by Brandis and Grant (1868). They were deserted because of higher taxation by the state, thereby implying that the ownership of kans was vested with the state despite the people enjoying traditional privileges. Usually the kans had distinct boundaries marked by old trenches or footpaths. Each holder or wargdar had a portion demarcated by some lines or footpaths or other identification marks.  Captain Someren (1871) found several unoccupied kans in the Belandur area of Shimoga.