Faith-based and community stewardship systems, including Ethiopian church forests, Japanese shrine and temple groves and Indian sacred groves, serve as vital socio-ecological infrastructure. They act as biodiversity refugia, provide ecosystem services, support landscape resilience, and sustain biocultural knowledge, cultural identity and intergenerational learning. Despite their ecological and cultural significance, they remain underrecognized in biodiversity policy. Integrating these systems into biodiversity governance can strengthen resilience, landscape multifunctionality and sustainability transitions.
Policy recommendations
• Recognize sacred natural sites as faith-based socio-ecological infrastructure.
• Institutionalize sacred natural sites in identification of other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) and implementation of National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs).
• Integrate sacred natural sites into spatial planning, ecological networks and restoration strategies.
• Strengthen coordination among environmental, cultural and local governance institutions.
• Support community stewardship, intergenerational knowledge transmission and integrated ecological-cultural monitoring.
