It’s late afternoon on a Thursday, and Remi Adenike stands barefoot on the bank of the Osun River in southwest Nigeria.
Slowly, she lifts a calabash into the air, and begins to pray in Yoruba, first in a whisper, and then rising into a shout. “God, please hear the cry of your daughter,” she says. “Bless the work of our hands, and let those around us see that we worship a god who answers.”
As her voice travels across the water and deep into the forest, a troop of monkeys swings through a nearby tree, their calls serving as a chorus to her words.
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There are many motives for protecting the natural world. One that’s often overlooked in conservation circles is faith. A sacred forest in Nigeria demonstrates faith’s power.
She is praying to Osun, the Yoruba goddess of wealth, fertility, and love, whose shrine lies within this forest, known as the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove.
From India to rural Ghana, forests with spiritual significance like this one have long drawn worshippers and tourists. Now, however, they are also gaining global recognition for their role in forest conservation.
Faith, it turns out, is more powerful than a fence. “These places are succeeding where government policies often fall short,” says Bas Verschuuren, an assistant professor of forest and nature conservation policy at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
Rooted in belief
Around the world, sacred forests are protected by their connection to the spiritual world. The Yoruba people believe that the Osun-Osogbo grove, which sprawls across 185 acres of dense forest, is the goddess Osun’s earthly home.
“This grove holds the soul of the Yoruba people,” says Grace Folashade Ayodele, a tour guide with the National Commission for Museums and Monuments who shows visitors around the forest. “It’s a reminder of our culture and identity, and our connection to our ancestors.”
Scattered throughout the grove are about 45 shrines, along with sculptures and altars in homage to Osun and other Yoruba deities. The grove also houses two ancient palaces and nine riverside worship points, each maintained by priests or priestesses who inherit their roles through their family lineage.
Officially, the grove has three sets of guardians. The Nigerian federal government manages it as a tourist site. The local government provides and maintains the infrastructure. And local chiefs oversee traditional rites.
But outside this structure, the grove’s true guardians are an unwritten set of taboos and spiritual obligations that forbid logging, hunting, or harming any living thing within its boundaries, explains Alao Eniafe, a local chief in the community, in a text message to The Christian Science Monitor.
“We are custodians of this land not because the government said so, but because our ancestors chose us,” he writes. “If we break these laws, we offend both the spirits and the community.”
Every August, this sacred bond between people and land is celebrated during the Osun-Osogbo Festival. For two weeks, the grove plays host to worshippers and tourists from near and far, who fill the air with music and dance as they proceed to the Osun River with offerings like kola nuts and palm oil for the goddess.
A line of defense
Sacred groves’ protection of nature is nothing new. But recognition of that role is growing.
These sites can be just as effective at preserving biodiversity as formal protected areas, according to a 2023 study in the journal Conservation Biology. Just like national parks, sacred groves offer a supportive environment where animals can reproduce and thrive, while also helping to absorb carbon, says Megan Sullivan, an ecologist and postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, and co-author of that study.
This effectiveness has enormous implications for conservation, especially in regions where government oversight is weak or inconsistent. In Nigeria alone, more than 3.2 million acres of tree cover have disappeared since 2000 in a global deforestation crisis that has wiped out nearly 1.2 billion acres in two decades.
Yet, the Osun-Osogbo grove remains remarkably intact, providing sanctuary for more than 400 plant species and serving as a refuge for wildlife, including the endangered red-capped mangabey, a shy, tree-dwelling monkey with a rust-colored crown, puffy white cheeks, and large, expressive eyes.
Growing pressure
Still, this spiritual shield is not impenetrable. Roads, farms, and poverty are threatening sacred groves worldwide. “It might start with someone gathering firewood or clearing a small plot for farming, but over time, those small intrusions add up,” says Dr. Verschuuren, who also co-chairs the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s specialist group on the cultural and spiritual values of protected areas.
In some communities, newer faiths, especially those that view traditional practices as heretical have weakened ties to sacred forests.
Even education can unintentionally erode sacred conservation. In northern Ghana, for instance, “culture” used to be a subject in school, and students were taught about sacred groves in their own languages, Dr. Verschuuren says. “When that curriculum disappeared, that space for passing on traditional knowledge disappeared.”
In many ways, sacred groves offer a conservation model that is personal and rooted in community, qualities often missing from the top-down government efforts. “What makes sacred groves powerful isn’t just the biodiversity they protect,” Ms. Sullivan says. “It’s the idea that conservation can be led by local communities and not imposed on them.”
That’s also why the loss of these forests has more than an ecological impact. “These are places of peace and reflection,” Ms. Sullivan says. “When they vanish, people lose part of themselves.”
Okanlawon AbdulAzeez contributed reporting for this story.
