16 Worldview s and Integra tion sapota, banana and guavas. The forest and vegetation mix is a combination of evergreen forests with sholas, semi- evergreen, moist deciduous and scrub forests. Kodagu and its people have many unique traditions and one such tradition is the concept of “Devakad” or the sacred groves (SGs). There are SGs all over the world but what is unique in Kodagu is the very large number, with 1214 listed SGs covering an area of 2550.45 hectares in the district; this is the highest in the world. There is one SG for every 300 hectares of land. Every village has one, or more than one, grove. There are 14 villages with more than 10 groves and Thakeri village in Somwarpet taluk has the largest number, with 17 groves. Though the district has a large number of groves most of them are very small islands. Out of 1214 groves in Kodagu, 80% are less than 2 ha in area and there are only 123 groves that cover more than 4 ha (Kushalappa and Kushalappa 1996)i. These groves have been protected in the names of 165 different deities. The most common deities are Iyappa, Bhagavathi, Bhadrakali, Mahadeva, Basaweshwara. All the 18 native communities, including Muslim communities called Jammamapilas, are part of this unique tradition. Most of the sacred groves have a village level committee consisting of representatives from all the major communities of the village with Devathakka the person assigned as head of the committee to look after the functioning of the temple. There are others, like Bhandara Thakka (treasurer or keeper of money and jewels) and Uruthakka (head of village) and Nadthakka (head of a group of villages), who assist the temple committees. These responsibilities, along with the performing of various rituals such as offerings, music, dance and other religious rituals during the annual festivity, are given to members of certain communities within the village. RCE Kodagu and especially KMFT have been strengthening this aspect of conservation through festivals, community engagement, anthropologists and conservationists to highlight the significance of the tradition of maintaining sacred groves by communities and the benefits of them. 110 The sacred groves have undergone changes in their legal status, physical extent and worship tradition. The extent of the groves has reduced from 6277 ha in 1905 to 2550 ha in 1985. But their numbers increased from 873 to 1214 during the same period, indicating a reduction in area resultant of their fragmentation (Kalam 1996ii and Uthappa 2004)iii. This reduction in area was mainly due to encroachments for cultivation and habitation. The most important cause for the change in their physical area was due to the confusion regarding their legal ownership, which was presumed to be with the revenue department from 1905 until 1985. KMFT examined the issue and published a book in 2004 that clarified that these sacred groves were declared as protected forest in 1873 and such status continues today. However, when government orders were issued for their transfer from the forest department to the revenue department in 1905 and later back to the forest department in 1985 this resulted in dual ownership and hence both departments did not take the steps to protect the forests. RCE Kodagu wrote letters to the concerned department in the Ministry of Environment and Forests, made presentations, provided evidence and organised visits by the concerned officials from Delhi and Bangalore and finally had SGs declared as special forests. The Concept of Worship The loss in the physical extent of the SGs and their conversion into coffee estates and habitation during the period 1905 to 1985 brought in remarkable changes in social customs and practices. The tradition of restrained resource utilisation practice along with the natural enrichment of soil had given way to rapid and indiscriminate resource utilisation resulting in a shift of focus from grove to deity and the temple. The original concept of a sacred grove followed by a sacred pond and then paddy cultivation has gradually disappeared due to increasing pressure of population and changing cropping patterns leading to more and more area being brought under commercial crops, such as coffee and ginger. These changes have also influenced the worship concept. The worship concept, which originated as nature worship, gradually transformed to installation of deities and finally into construction of huge structures or temples forgoing the grove and its inherent ecological importance. The construction of temples and installation of deities resulted in regular worship over an annual or seasonal worship concept. This process of transformation and the What began as nature worship underwent several transformations and has either been totally lost or is in the process of destruction.
Traditional Knowledge and Biodiversity
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