Sacred natural sites protect biodiversity in Iran

Research team from the Universities of Kassel, Göttingen and Kurdistan investigate this form of local nature conservation. How much do traditional practices contribute to the protection of local biodiversity? Why and how are sacred groves locally valued and protected, and how can this be promoted and harnessed for environmental protection? Working together with the University of Kurdistan, researchers of the University of Göttingen and the University of Kassel have examined the backgrounds of this form of local environmental protection in Baneh County, Iran.  "Around the world, local communities are voluntarily protecting certain parts of their surroundings due to religious reasons - be it in Ethiopia, Morocco, Italy, China or India", reports Professor Tobias Plieninger, head of the section Social-ecological Interactions in Agricultural Systems at the universities of Kassel and Göttingen. Sacred natural sites are places where traditional myths and stories meet local ecological knowledge and environmental protection. Beyond state-based protection programs, these form a network of informal nature reserves. In the contested border areas between Iran and Iraq, state-run environmental protection programs are often failing, while natural resources are under a lot of pressure. Even in such areas of conflict, patches of highly biodiverse woodlands still exist thanks to informal conservation traditions - in the form of decades-old sacred natural sites, some of which are known as the 'sacred groves'.