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Church forests in Ethiopia
In their review, “Sacred groves: poten-
tial for biodiversity management”
(Front Ecol Environ 2006; 4(10):
519–24), Bhagwat and Rutte propose
incorporating small forest patches and
other natural sacred sites into existing
conservation networks to enhance
their effectiveness. While I don’t want
to enter the heavily discussed “single
large or several small” debate, I do
agree that sacred groves can be partic-
ularly useful for conserving biodiver-
sity, by covering a wider variety of
habitats than would be covered by a
single large area. Sometimes it is not
feasible to maintain large tracts of for-
est. An undiscussed yet obvious rea-
son for this is the absence of large
forests due to historical deforestation
and fragmentation. Aiming to extend
the attention given to small forest
fragments for the conservation of bio-
diversity, I would like to discuss an
extreme case: the Ethiopian Ortho-
dox church forests.
The montane forests of the Ethio-
pian plateau are known for their
exceptionally high vertebrate and
plant diversity and richness in nar-
row-ranging species (Burgess et al.
2006). Overgrazing, deforestation for
wood collection, and the creation of
arable land are causing widespread
land degradation, at least since the
Semitic immigration to northern
Ethiopia in ~500 BC. With the
exception of a few formally protected
areas (National Forest Priority
Areas), fragments of the original
Afromontane forest in the northern
highlands are found almost exclu-
sively in and around sacred sites such
as holy waters, monasteries, and
churchyards. Since the dominant
Afromontane tree species generally
do not accumulate seeds in the soil
(eg Wassie and Teketay 2006) and are
thus no longer present in the semi-
arid, degraded landscape matrix, con-
servation of dry Afromontane woody
flora depends on the conservation
and sustainable use of sacred groves
(Aerts et al. 2006). In this extreme
case, conservation using a network of
sacred groves has become a necessity
rather than an alternative option.
Although people generally respect
the integrity of the church forests,
many sacred groves are threatened.
For an outsider, the most direct threat
would seem to be the selective logging
of large trees for constructing or
expanding churches. But were it not
for the churches, these trees would
have been cut long ago; thus, selective
logging that serves the churches is
more an inevitability than a menace.
Unfortunately, felled trees are com-
monly replaced by fast-growing, non-
native tree species, or not at all. More
serious threats are those not controlled
by the church or regulated by the com-
munity. Poor boundary demarcation
often leads to encroachment. Snags at
the forest edge are eventually cut for
firewood and, quite often, drying of
trees is promoted when the bark of
healthy trees is stripped. Grazing by
domestic livestock is not allowed, with
the exception of cattle owned by
priests. Although livestock pressure is
low compared to the grazing lands,
natural regeneration is suppressed,
resulting in degraded stands without
seedlings and juvenile trees.
In a nutshell, church forests in
northern Ethiopia play an important
role in biodiversity conservation
because they are the only remaining
patches of Afromontane forest in a
landscape of degraded semiarid
savanna, and because the community
has a tradition of protecting these
woodlands. Increasing the size of for-
est patches and placing forest planta-
tions and grazing exclosures in the
vicinity of sacred groves may increase
the likelihood of patch colonization
by forest birds and thus foster the
regeneration of native woody species.
Raf Aerts
Division Forest, Nature and Landscape,
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven,
Leuven, Belgium
raf.aerts@biw.kuleuven.be
Aerts R, Van Overtveld K, Haile M, et al.
2006. Species composition and diver-
sity of small Afromontane forest frag-
ments in northern Ethiopia. Plant Ecol
187: 127–42.
Burgess ND, Hales JD, Ricketts TH, et al.
2006. Factoring species, non-species
values and threats into biodiversity pri-
oritisation across the ecoregions of
Africa and its islands. Biol Conserv
127: 383–401.
Wassie A and Teketay D. 2006. Soil seed
banks in church forests of northern
Ethiopia: implications for the conserva-
tion of woody plants. Flora 201: 32–43.
The author replies
Aerts presents a very interesting case
study in which sacred groves have
become a necessity for conservation in
the absence of Afromontane forest
habitat protection in Ethiopia. This is
hardly surprising. As I and my coau-
thor have suggested (Front Ecol
Environ 2006; 4(10): 519–24), regions
with a long history of human settle-
ment, high rates of population growth,
and competing economic interests for
available land are often excluded from
formal protected area networks, leav-
ing informal traditions as one of the
few viable mechanisms for conserva-
tion. In examples similar to that of
Aerts’, Ramanujam and Kadamban
(2003) and Mani and Parthasarathy
(2005) make a compelling case for
conservation of sacred groves on the
southeast coast of India, where these
are the only remnants of dry evergreen
forest habitat. It is therefore clear that
such informal conservation practices
are vital, not optional, on the global
conservation scene.
Work on species–area relationships
has suggested that a reduction in area
available for wild species imposes a
linear reduction of the earth’s species
diversity (Rosenzweig 2001). While
reserving tracts of wild habitat in
protected areas can delay the reduc-
tion in species diversity, Rosenzweig
(2003) believes that future conserva-
tion should be focused on redesigning
anthropogenic habitats so that their
use is compatible with use by a broad
array of other species. Termed “recon-
ciliation ecology”, this approach
advocates certain principles for creat-
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