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the potential for livelihoods based on value speciality products, tourism, and recreation (see
Chapter 7) (Reyers et al. 2009, Tscharntke et al. 2012, von Wehrden et al. 2014). Such diversifi-
cation of livelihoods may provide increasingly important employment opportunities in the
wake of economic crises, which are leading to industrial collapse and urban decay. Faced
with choices between agricultural intensification, land abandonment, or the restoration of
traditional management and landscapes, some stakeholders prefer the latter as providing a
better employment opportunities, as well as hope for re-engaging with the land, improving
social cohesion, and enhancing ecosystem services like food production, watershed protec-
tion, and carbon storage (Tscharntke et al. 2012, Milcu et al. 2014, von Wehrden et al. 2014).
There is therefore renewed interest in reviving traditional management techniques that sup-
ply sustainable ecosystem services that are managed through local institutions and which
maintain heterogeneous multifunctional landscape mosaics (Chun and Tak 2009, Tscharn-
tke et al. 2012, von Wehrden et al. 2014). Furthermore, as marginal farmlands are abandoned,
opportunities for woodland restoration and rewilding provide further biodiversity, aesthetic
and spiritual benefits (Monbiot 2013, 2014) (see Chapters 3 and 7).
Cultural ecosystem services include aesthetic, recreational, educational, and stewardship
values, but these terms capture only a fraction of the reasons that people value the land-
scapes around them. A sense of place, cultural identity, heritage, tradition, ritual, social cohe-
sion, as well as peace, solitude, spirituality, and experiencing the beauty of nature, are just
some of the social and individual benefits that contribute to social and individual well-being
(MEA 2005). Understanding and respecting these values is critical in ensuring that biodiver-
sity conservation is firmly embedded in local context and identity (Foster 2003, de Groot et al.
2005). Places that are important for cultural reasons are often well preserved and protected,
and the synergy between spirituality and nature conservation helps to cement the ties
between people and nature, and which are core to the success of ecosystem management
(Bhagwat 2009, Dudley et al. 2010).
Sacred sites are often buildings, churches, temples, and other places of worship and con-
templation, but they can also be found in a range of natural and semi-natural habitats,
including forests, rivers, lakes, mountains, savannas, and coastal areas. Cultivated areas,
woodlots, gardens, and mixed landscapes can also be sacred (Bhagwat and Rutte 2006).
Sacred groves are important reservoirs of biodiversity, seed sources, and provide connectivity
between larger forested areas. Sacred groves provide important sources of tree propagation,
either through seed dispersal, or by the deliberate propagation of sacred trees from cuttings
(Niamir 1990). Such groves often have religious and traditional significance and their use and
access is governed by local customs; for example, there may be taboos against cutting down
trees in certain areas, or killing of particular animals (Bhagwat 2012).
Often, sacred groves are the only remaining islands of forest in landscapes that have been
cleared for other uses like settlement and agriculture. For example, the territory of the Men-
ominee tribes of Wisconsin includes the only remaining old-growth stands in the largely
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