Abstract
Sacred natural sites (SNS) have gained recognition from conservationists, and are regarded as the oldest form of habitat protection in human history. Many case studies and literature reviews have been published on the subject. However, an updated and global-level synthesis on the effect of SNS on biodiversity conservation is still lacking. Here, we provide the first systematic review on SNS and biodiversity conservation, aiming to evaluate the effect of SNS across different: (i) continents; (ii) taxa; (iii) metrics. We checked 2750 papers and by applying inclusion criteria we selected 27 relevant papers. From these, we extracted descriptive data and 131 comparisons between SNS and Reference Sites. We applied vote-counting, multinomial and binomial post-hoc tests to the 131 comparisons. We found strong evidence that SNS have a positive effect on biodiversity, but also strong geographical and taxonomical biases, with most research focusing on Asia and Africa and on plants. We found that SNS have mainly positive effects on taxonomical diversity, vegetation structure and cultural uses of biodiversity. Our results strongly support the view that SNS have positive effects on biodiversity across continents and geographical settings, as found in a number of local studies and earlier overviews. These effects should be given official recognition in appropriate conservation frameworks, together with the specific forms of governance and management that characterize SNS. At the same time, further efforts are also required to fill the geographical and taxonomical gaps here highlighted, and to advancing our knowledge of SNS through more systematic research.
Highlights
The accelerated rate at which biodiversity is being eroded (Díaz 2019) is moving scientists to call for the conservation of large portions of the Earth (e.g., Locke 2013; Wilson 2016; Baillie and Zhang 2018; Dinerstein et al 2020)
The geographical distribution of the study areas investigated in the 27 papers eligible for systematic review was highly uneven (Fig. 1a), as 8 studies focused on the Kodagu District (India) and another 8 on West Africa
We found 13 papers related to Sacred natural sites (SNS) located in Asia, 11 in Africa and only 3 papers related to SNS in Europe (Fig. 1b)
Summary
The accelerated rate at which biodiversity is being eroded (Díaz 2019) is moving scientists to call for the conservation of large portions of the Earth (e.g., Locke 2013; Wilson 2016; Baillie and Zhang 2018; Dinerstein et al 2020). Interest has been increasing in complementary conservation measures, which may integrate and possibly overcome some of the limitations of PA One such type of measures has been defined and legally ratified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the Convention on Biological Diversity as Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs). These include a broad range of cases, from private estates to ancestral lands, in which conservation is not the primary purpose of land management, as in the case of PA, but consistently delivered as a by-product of other management goals (IUCN WCPA 2019). SNS can consist of built features, such as temples, shrines or monasteries, surrounded by natural or semi-natural areas (Dudley et al 2009; Frascaroli et al 2016a,b)
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