ABSTRACT
This chapter explores spiritual ecology, sacred places, and biodiversity conservation in turn, and then demonstrates their interrelationships with the particular case of sacred groves. The term spiritual ecology is used simply because it is more inclusive than religion, referring to individual as well as organizational ideas and actions in this arena. In addition, it parallels the designation of other approaches within environmental anthropology, such as cultural ecology, historical ecology, and political ecology. One of the most concrete manifestations of the phenomena of spiritual ecology is sacred places in nature. Often places in the landscape are not only geological, biological, cultural, geographical, historic, and/or prehistoric, but deemed sacred and therefore also religious or spiritual. Basically, sacred groves are one manifestation of spiritual ecology and also they may facilitate biodiversity conservation. They are stands of trees, or patches of forest, that local communities reserve and protect primarily because of their religious importance.
