Sacred forests often comprise the last remaining native patches in the landscape, making them especially important reserves of natural resources for both local communities and biodiversity. However, changes in cultural values together with the pressing need to expand productive lands weaken the motivation to continue protecting once-sacred forests. In this Commentary, we propose an alternative strategy for the conservation of these forests, consisting of the implementation of community-managed forests (CMFs). We illustrate this strategy with the case of a project undertaken in northern Guinea-Bissau by a regional non-governmental organization. We further discuss the need for non-governmental efforts to be aligned with governmental ones for effective CMFs.

Many cultures around the world are motivated to protect particular areas as sacred sites as a consequence of their complex social–spiritual associations with deities and/or spirits of ancestors (Bhagwat & Rutte Reference Bhagwat and Rutte2006, Dudley et al. Reference Dudley, Bhagwat, Higgins-Zogib, Lassen, Verschuuren, Wild, Verschuuren, Wild, McNeely and Oviedo2012). These sacred spaces occur in many different forms, such as old-growth forest remnants and burial grounds, and they are used for a wide variety of spiritual/religious purposes (Lebbie & Freudenberger Reference Lebbie, Freudenberger, Schelhas and Greenberg1996). In addition to their cultural value, sacred forests often contain valuable reserves of natural resources (e.g., water, protein and timber; Sheppard Reference Sheppard2021, Yami & Mekuria Reference Yami and Mekuria2022). Given their typically low levels of human disturbance (Daye & Healey Reference Daye and Healey2015, Bremer & Young Reference Bremer, Young, Silvern and Davis2021), these forests often host higher species diversity than nearby non-sacred forests (Khan et al. Reference Khan, Khumbongmayum and Tripathi2008, Soumah Reference Soumah2018). Moreover, due to their special cultural significance, they are frequently the last remaining natural patches in an anthropogenic landscape, making them potentially important biodiversity refuges that safeguard some species from extirpation (Mgumia & Oba Reference Mgumia and Oba2003).

Notwithstanding the high socio-ecological value of sacred forests, their long-term persistence in some parts of the world is at risk due to shifts in spiritual beliefs and traditional values, exacerbated by human population growth and the pressing need to expand productive lands (Khumbongmayum et al. Reference Khumbongmayum, Khan and Tripathi2004, Soumah Reference Soumah2018). Changes in cultural values can weaken the motivation to continue protecting once-sacred forests, which consequently become degraded and eventually disappear (Khan et al. Reference Khan, Khumbongmayum and Tripathi2008, Bhatia et al. Reference Bhatia, Redpath, Suryawanshi and Mishra2017). One of the most rapid and widespread changes to traditional beliefs is caused by the adoption of new religious frameworks (typically global monotheistic religions), with associated value shifts that can redefine a community’s relationship with its local environment, as for example in Malaysia (Appell Reference Appell and RL2005). Shifting cultural values can be further accelerated by demographic changes (e.g., age and migrant status), as younger people can be more likely to stop following traditional practices and immigrants are often less likely to share the same beliefs as locals. Synergies between religion, age and migrant status have been found to drive the degradation of once-sacred forests in Zimbabwe (Byers et al. Reference Byers, Cunliffe and Hudak2001), Ghana and Liberia (Sheppard Reference Sheppard2021).

The consequences of degrading and losing sacred forests are complex, with short-term economic gains often unequally shared among local communities. Moreover, these gains are traded off against the loss of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. For instance, as sacred forests are often associated with freshwater springs, the disturbance of these forests may affect the hydrological cycle and thus water provision for local communities (Hakim et al. Reference Hakim, Saputra, Tanika, Kusumawati, Sari and Andreotti2023). Changes in behaviour that promote the disturbance of sacred forests are also likely to disrupt the traditional social organization of local communities (Appell Reference Appell and RL2005, Khan et al. Reference Khan, Khumbongmayum and Tripathi2008).

In a rapidly changing landscape of cultural beliefs, conservation initiatives that retain high levels of local motivation for protecting forests that recently lost their sacred character need to be urgently implemented (Langston et al. Reference Langston, Riggs, Sururi, Sunderland and Munawir2017, Ballullaya et al. Reference Ballullaya, Reshmi, Rajesh, Manoj, Lowman and Sinu2019). One such option consists of CMFs, which comprise the fastest-growing category of tropical protected areas (PAs) (Schmitt et al. Reference Schmitt, Burgess, Coad, Belokurov, Besançon and Boisrobert2009). These informal PAs are a promising conservation alternative to protecting desacralized forests, and they may also allow for the collective empowerment and welfare of local communities (Lele et al. Reference Lele, Wilshusen, Brockington, Seidler and Bawa2010). Tropical CMFs have lower and less variable annual deforestation rates than other types of PAs (Bray et al. Reference Bray, Merino-Pérez, Negreros-Castillo, Segura-Warnholtz, Torres-Rojo and Vester2003, Porter-Bolland et al. Reference Porter-Bolland, Ellis, Guariguata, Ruiz-Mallén, Negrete-Yankelevich and Reyes-García2012), harbour higher species diversity (de Souza et al. Reference de Souza, Vidal, Chagas, Elgar and Brancalion2016, but see Terborgh & Peres Reference Terborgh and Peres2017) and maintain basic ecosystem functions (Rajasri et al. Reference Rajasri, Sreevidya and Ramachandra2017).

Yet this type of designation is not without challenges. Forest resources within CMFs can still be overexploited if multiple local stakeholders are uncoordinated or uncooperative (Ostrom Reference Ostrom2015). For instance, in Nepal detrimental practices such as the removal of unwanted species, elite dominance in decision-making and traditional knowledge depletion are common in CMFs, and these are likely to impact the delivery of ecosystem services (Shrestha et al. Reference Shrestha, Shrestha and Shrestha2010). Other potential weaknesses of CMFs include the frequent lack of governance systems in which local entities are granted land tenure rights (Lele et al. Reference Lele, Wilshusen, Brockington, Seidler and Bawa2010, Porter-Bolland et al. Reference Porter-Bolland, Ellis, Guariguata, Ruiz-Mallén, Negrete-Yankelevich and Reyes-García2012). Decentralization of natural resources management, namely transfer of the responsibility for resource management from central to local government, organizations or communities (Rondinelli et al. Reference Rondinelli, McCullough and Johnson1989), is the strategy that is most able to ensure equity and transparency in the delivery of public services (Ostrom Reference Ostrom2015). For instance, in indigenous territories with secure tenure in the Brazilian Amazon, deforestation decreased and secondary forest increased on previously deforested areas (Baragwanath et al. Reference Baragwanath, Bayi and Shinde2023). Decentralization of natural resources is becoming a policy tool for several developing countries worldwide (Turyahabwe et al. Reference Turyahabwe, Geldenhuys, Watts and Obua2007, Yami & Mekuria Reference Yami and Mekuria2022). Yet the overall social, environmental and economic aspects of community forest management remain greatly understudied (Casse & Milhøj Reference Casse and Milhøj2013, Burivalova et al. Reference Burivalova, Hua, Koh, Garcia and Putz2017).