DOI: 10.36347/sjebm.2015.v02i10.016

Pages: 1086-1090

This paper critically examines the economic valuation of sacred groves (Kavus) in Kerala, interrogating how efforts to assign monetary value to the ecosystem services intersect with complex ethnic identities and cultural politics. Sacred groves represent remnants of once-extensive evergreen forests, functioning as self-sustaining ecosystems that harbour endemic, endangered and economically significant plant species while providing crucial regulating services including microclimate stabilization, water harvesting and nutrient cycling. Kerala retains approximately 1,500 sacred groves with distribution concentrated in the northern Malabar region. These groves yield provisioning services including medicinal plants, non-timber forest products and ecosystem services. However, economic valuation frameworks encounter fundamental challenges when applied to spaces where cultural and spiritual values resist commodification. The groves embody "indigenous reverential ecofear" - a complex fusion of reverence and fear towards nature that has historically ensured conservation through taboo enforcement. The transformation of groves from relatively open commons to exclusive "club goods" reflects broader shifts in access regimes that economic valuation alone cannot capture. Furthermore, the decline of joint family systems and land fragmentation, driven by changing socio-economic scenarios, threatens grove viability in ways that challenge purely monetary approaches. It concludes that meaningful preservation requires integrating economic incentives with recognition of the groves contested social histories, ensuring that valuation does not inadvertently reinforce exclusionary dynamics or erase the diverse ethnic identities historically intertwined with these sacred landscapes.