Sacred sites key to protecting species: UN

By Marie-Louise Gumuchian

NAIROBI (Reuters) – From skull caves in southern Kenya to
Mexico’s searing Chihuahuan desert, preserving sacred sites is
key to slowing the loss of animal and plant species,
environmentalists said on Saturday.

Experts have pinpointed a string of religious sites across
the globe as pilot ecosystems where local customs have helped
safeguard troves of biological richness.

A new $1.7 million U.N.-led initiative aims to help protect
those sites by documenting species, conducting surveys with
local communities and assessing potential for ecotourism.

“There is clear and growing evidence of a link between
cultural diversity and biodiversity,” Klaus Toepfer, U.N.
Environment Program (UNEP) executive director, said announcing
the plan.

“Sadly, sacred sites are also under threat and there is an
urgent need to help local, indigenous and traditional peoples
safeguard their heritage which in turn can do much to conserve
the biological and genetic diversity upon which we all depend.”

The project will look at sites such as south Indian forest
groves linked to agricultural and artistic traditions, and the
ritual site of Mount Ausangate in Peru, UNEP said.

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Also targeted is the Boloma-Bijagos archipelago in
Guinea-Bissau, where beaches and mangroves are used for rituals
and are home to fish, crocodiles and hippos.

According to strict local community rules, certain areas
are off limits and burials, shedding of blood and construction
of permanent settlements are banned in some places.

“These traditional practices … assist in the preservation
of the sites for flora and fauna,” said Gonzalo Oviedo of the
World Conservation Union.

Other sites listed include the Taita skull caves in
southern Kenya, where the bones of male members of the tribe
are placed. Taboos surrounding the caves have led to small but
important relics of indigenous forest surviving.

Wirikuta in Mexico’s Chihuahan desert, where locals believe
the sun was born, is home to around two-thirds of birds and
mammals of the desert.

But it is under threat from uncontrolled tourism,
agriculture, hunting and illegal trafficking of wildlife.

Communities managing such sites had made efforts locally
but global action had been woefully inadequate, said Oviedo.

The “Conservation of Biodiversity Rich Sacred Natural
Sites” initiative will be formally unveiled at the Convention
on Biological Diversity in Brazil on March 20-31.

The meeting will review a world goal of slowing drastic
acceleration of biodiversity by 2010, set at a summit in
Johannesburg in 2002.

“Conserving sacred sites and their biological richness can
play a major role in achieving the 2010 target and perhaps act
as beacons from where good and sustainable management practices
can be exported to nearby areas and beyond,” Toepfer said.