Sacred Groves
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& Pierre Binggeli
Sacred groves
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Woody
Plant Ecology
In Ethiopia religious believes have played and continue to play a crucial role in biodiversity conservation. Sacred trees, groves and forests exist throughout Ethiopia, and receive various degree of protection by relatively modern religions (i.e. Orthodox Christians and Muslims) and traditional religions. These sites have been important to people of various ethnic groups for centuries and their main role is to provide a gathering place and a focus of unity for people of various religions and cultures. These various belief systems have contributed to the conservation of these wooded sites through the preservation of various plant species, many of them having important socio-cultural values. Although Ethiopia is dominated by Orthodox Christians and Muslims, a number of ethnic groups have their own traditional belief systems. For example, the Oromo have their own traditional religion. Every year, just before the beginning of the harvesting season, the Oromo have a prayer ceremony (thanksgiving festival), called irreessa. It takes place in river meadows, under big trees, in a grove or a forest. Gurage and Amhara also have their own traditional belief system called adbar. Adbar takes place each year under big trees located on community land. Photograph: South of Addis Ababa two religions coexist as exemplified by the esistence of two sacred groves in the close vicinity of each other. The Orthodox grove, the largest, is centre left and the Gurage grove is centre right and consists in a large tree with a ring of shrubs. |
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The level of protection given to these sacred groves varies between religions, ranging from complete preservation (no uses can be made of the site as in many Oromo sites) to the exploitation of resources for religious (including tree felling) purposes (e.g. majority Orthodox sites). In many parts of Ethiopia native trees may only be found in these sacred groves, these are usually small (< 1 ha), as relentless deforestation over the past centuries has resulted in the destruction of most forests. |