BEEJVAN FOUNDATION

Sacred Forests (SF) are culturally and socially protected forests found in various parts of the world. Known by various names, they serve multiple purposes: they are home to rich biodiversity and repositories of indigenous knowledge systems; act as the ‘lungs of the cities’, and often are a key source of food, water, and medicines for local communities. However, urbanisation, cultural disconnection and the exploitation of resource-rich zones have led to their decline globally. The negative consequences for local communities—impacting food and water security, health and well-being — as well as biodiversity on local, regional, and global scales are well-documented.

Sacred Forests are the key resource for Carbon Sequestration, provision of clean air and water, food and nutrition, and protection of all biodiverse animal and plant species.
Given that the protection and conservation of SFs are seen as the last resort for addressing global biodiversity challenges, Beejvan takes a transformative approach to understanding, conserving and managing Sacred Forests. We are inspired by the Inner Development Goal (IDG) framework, which focuses on ‘being, thinking, relating, collaborating, acting’, and emphasises the real-time co-creation of processes and systems that build a roadmap for inner change to catalyse outer development. By integrating ‘Sacredness’ and the Rural Livelihood Development agenda with the SDG and IDG frameworks, we explore innovative solutions that are both locally tailored and globally scalable, offering a blueprint for biodiversity management that blends traditional with modern conservation paradigms.