Scientists map religious forests and sacred sites

The Oxford researchers estimate that religious groups own about eight per cent of land across round the globe, much of it being covered in forest, and about 15 per cent of the world’s surface is ‘sacred land’ – land that has ‘sacred’ connotations rather than being necessarily owned by faith communities….

The Oxford research team is engaged, firstly, in investigating what legal or official data exists on boundary lines and the rights to the land. Once the status of the land and its boundaries are known, the geographical co-ordinates can be entered onto their database at the Biodiversity Institute.

The researchers will work with groups of many different faiths: those who manage the sacred groves in India, the Shinto shrines in Japan, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which owns 300 fragments of forest including the last remnants of Afro-montane tropical forest containing rare and endangered insects. The religious sites appear to contain a high proportion of species that feature on the IUCN’s Red List (of threatened species).

via Scientists map religious forests and sacred sites.