Shifting Ideologies: India’s Sacred Groves

1. Shifting Ideologies: India’s Sacred Groves Haley Flora, Lauren Genn, McKenzie Phelan, Schuyler Schwartz ENVS 220 Fall 2012 Background Research Question How has the 21st century conservation ethic influenced the ethnobotanical management of sacred groves? Background to come. We’re in the process of making it shorter. It’s in the Project Record  Woodfordiafruticosa, herb grown in Manipuri groves Map of India: Manipuri Timeline Week 1: Fly to Guwahati airport, hire team including surveyors, translators and GIS mappersWeek 2: Identify key informants and locate the KonthoujamLairembi, Mahabali, LangolThongakLairembi and HeingangMarjing groves. Week 3-35: Our team will split in two. One group of two will conduct interviews and another will oversee field data studies Week 36-40: Begin GIS analysis and interview transcription Week 41-46: Interview analysisWeek 46-50: Write research paperWeek 50-60: Peer review and submit to journals Week 61: Public research paper Methods We will use the quadrat field survey to perform a quantitative evaluation of flora in sacred groves . We will compare our results to those of KhumbongmayumAshalata Devi’s research in 2005 which looked at four specific groves. We will then perform GIS mapping to visualize our data to view the change between date of Khumbongmayum’s 2005 article and 2013. Other methods include informal interviews with locals and formal interviews with government institutions. We will seek to investigate the way local residents perceive their role in conserving the sacred groves, access to the sacred flora, and the impact of sociopolitical institutions on our four focus groves. We will also familiarize ourselves with information on history of sacred groves, their religious and cultural backgrounds and the structure and function of sociopolitical institutions associated with each sacred grove. Sacred herb brew References Kent, Eliza F. “Sacred Groves and Local Gods: Religion and Environmentalism in South India.” World Views: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology 13, no. 1 (2009): 1–39. Khumbongmayum, Ashalata Devi, M. L. Khan, and R. S. Tripathi. “Sacred Groves of Manipur, Northeast India:biodiversity Value, Status and Strategies for Their Conservation.” Biodiversity & Conservation 14, no. 7 (June 1, 2005): 1541–1582. Ormsby, Alison. “The Impacts of Global and National Policy on the Management and Conservation of Sacred Groves of India.” Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal 39, no. 6 (December 2011): 783–793. Tiwari, B. K., S. K. Barik, and R. S. Tripathi. “Biodiversity Value, Status, and Strategies for Conservation of Sacred Groves of Meghalaya, India.” Ecosystem Health 4, no. 1 (March 1998): 20–32. Waghchaure, C. K., S. S. Naik, and A. R. Abhang. “Ethno-Medico-Botanical Studies on Katei Baba Sacred Grove and Nearby Area of Adhalwadi from AkoleTaluka, Ahmednagar District (maharashtra).” International Journal of Pharma & Bio Sciences 2, no. 3 (July 13, 2011): B.393–B.398.