By Karen Heikkilä and Geethanjali Mariaselvam
It has long been acknowledged in biodiversity conservation and human development circles that local communities have a special role in safeguarding nature. Local religions and stewardship principles and practices have sustained the bond between people and their specific environments, amidst legal, capitalist and modernist pressures. This is supported by our case studies of communities living in protected areas in India and Malaysia that show how nature is interwoven with the society and culture of the communities.
We argue that the role of traditional belief systems needs to be considered along with environmental knowledge systems and different social-ecological systems for long-term sustainability. More so, nature protection as a religious or spiritual obligation is overshadowed in the protected areas literature by a focus on the aesthetic, emotional, or historical reasons why local communities are motivated to conserve nature.
Dependence on nature as part of their belief systems and for their livelihoods motivates a deep conservationist ethos among the Bishnoi communities in Abohar Wildlife Sanctuary, Punjab, and the Semai in the Bukit Tapah Forest Reserve, Perak. This, in turn, is premised on cultivating a firsthand relationship with nature and linked to the notion of “geographies of hope in praxis”, which illustrates that being and belonging in nature can build community resilience against myriad crises. Intricately a part of the power of the collective will to make possible livable futures, hope underlies the metaphysical reality of Bishnoi and Semai beliefs to help people and non-human beings flourish in place.
Bishnoi and Semai Nature Reverence
Traditionally desert-based farmers, Bishnoi have utilized parts of the larger Thar Desert ecosystem that stretches across the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, parts of Punjab in India and across the border, into Pakistan. The communities reported on for this article are those living within the 7000-ha Abohar Wildlife Sanctuary in the Punjab. The sanctuary’s habitat is characterized by semi-arid plains and sand dunes, interspersed with villages and consisting of Bishnoi and minority Dalits.
Centuries ago, Bishnoi ancestors formed their own casteless Hindu-Jain sect. Diverging from mainstream Hinduism, the sect placed a high value on naturalist thinking and behaviors, including the active protection of fauna and flora. In fact, historically, Bishnois have sacrificed their lives to save trees and animals. The activity of fallowing the land itself is tied to the idea of helping these species flourish: fallowing is not only performed to regenerate soil fertility but to repopulate khedjri trees, which then serve as blackbuck feed. In fact, up to very recently, it was possible for the antelope to roam freely on farmland because Bishnoi believe that the presence of these animals on their lands increase crop yields. There is an ecological basis for this belief, as antelope dung is a natural fertilizer and weeds are controlled through antelope grazing. The practice of temperance among Bishnoi also discourages human-wildlife conflicts. For instance, the blackbuck antelope and other ungulates are not deterred from consuming crops; rather, they are regarded as a blessing to the land. People believe that for every ear of corn or shoot eaten by these animals, two new ears of corn or shoots spring up. Also, in many villages, a special granary is maintained so that there is a steady supply of feed for different animals and birds, which positively contributes to biodiversity protection.
Sharing a linguistic and cultural connection with different upland indigenous peoples of mainland Southeast Asia and India, Semai, like Bishnoi, are agriculturalists. Their aboriginal tradition of slash and burn agriculture in Peninsular Malaysia’s forests dates back millennia. We focus on Tééw War Semai living in the Bukit Tapah Forest Reserve, a land base of roughly 60,000 ha. The forest reserve contains close to 70 Semai villages; Teew War Semai inhabit six of these villages and several smaller hamlets, on the western side of the forest reserve.
The Semai tropical forest socio-ecological system is extremely biodiversity-rich and the Semai language reflects this fecundity by housing a rich and detailed environmental lexicon. Traditionally, people have foraged for a variety of wild tubers, vegetables, bananas and other fruits, and grown hill rice, millet and a variety of tree crops. Up to now, no-till, non-invasive and organic techniques of agricultural production have prevailed. Intercropping is carried out, agrochemicals are avoided, and the only agricultural tools used are dibbles, hoes, adzes and machetes. Traditional tools are also used during hunting, trapping and fishing.
Even as cereal farming has decreased over the decades, many Semai actively grow fruit trees in the forest on lands once left fallow after a few crop cycles of rice and millet in an area. It may be said that Semai agroforestry became more intensified ever since money replaced barter in their communities. Also, people have switched to eating more tapioca (roots as well as leaves) because it’s a food crop that easily propagates and replenishes, ensuring a steady supply of carbohydrates in the Semai diet. Nowadays, it is common for Semai to supplement their diet with store-bought rice when they wish to eat it.
Besides agroforestry, people also perform wage work, for instance in towns or on commercial farms. Nevertheless, there is a desire among Tééw War Semai to continue certain customs: this may be attributed to their animist, egalitarian outlook on life, a worldview that places responsibility on people for stewarding their forest homeland. Indeed, Semai spirituality may be said to rest on a belief system that views the realities of human life through the prism of the forest. Good and evil are concretized in natural phenomena and natural hazards are a reminder of human fallibility and the unpredictability of life. There is an unshakeable trust that the good will prevail, even if significant suffering must be borne in the interim. Thus, Semai spirituality, far from being a set of self-soothing beliefs, offers a pragmatic as well as a hopeful way of living on a day-to-day basis. Taboos, for instance, provide moral guidance and motivate respectful behavior towards the self, the community, and other beings.
The influence of money, schooling and exposure to life in cities and towns are present in contemporary Semai society. Yet, people continue to cultivate a strong bond with nature. This is observed in the kinds of agroecological activities that are performed in the Bukit Tapah Forest Reserve. The active planting of mostly endemic, local tree species occurs in the forest alongside small-scale tapioca and corn swiddening. People also travel in and out of the forest to maintain their vegetable gardens and Hevea rubber groves. These agricultural activities not only uphold the forest cover but safeguard the forest’s biodiversity.
Why Bishnoi, Semai and other Land-Based Communities Matter for Nature Conservation
It is worth remembering that protected areas have a broader role to play than just the conservation of species and habitats. They are often places where human lives have been living in the past and continue into the present. Especially in the Global South, where paradoxically most of the world’s natural resources are concentrated and yet where poverty, marginalization and environmental degradation proliferate, protected areas are some of the last bastions of minority cultural lifeways. Semai and Bishnoi communities, for instance, have been successful at preserving their cultures and religious values through their attachment to land. Even where their cultivation practices have changed, the newer practices that they have adopted remain very much land-linked and entrenched in the traditional ecological values that have kept them resilient in times of crises.
In the Abohar Wildlife Sanctuary, the introduction of canal irrigation has converted the desert landscape into fertile croplands, where even wet rice agriculture can be performed today. It is true that many Bishnoi desire the modern comforts of life, and especially, a good education for their children so that they can be more than “just farmers”. Yet, there is a commitment to protecting nature, even if it is at the level of focusing on just one or two culturally important species.
Nonetheless, will the motivation to conserve nature continue? Forms of developmentalism have, after all, taken root in the wildlife sanctuary. The introduction of commercial agriculture has replaced traditional rain-fed subsistence agriculture and vegetated the sand dune landscape that many endemic species rely on for habitat. Socio-economic and environmental consequences have also arisen due to commercial agriculture ventures in the area. One example is the shrinkage of the commons and an increase in private land holdings that have caused land and social fragmentation due to the erection of fences. Fences have also obstructed important wildlife corridors; they also demarcate the increasing number of small-sized, privately-owned parcels of land that seem to symbolize land as an inheritable asset rather than a communal resource.
In the Bukit Tapah Forest Reserve, it could be argued that Semai spirituality motivates the wise and responsible use of the forest. Living well and living with hope are fundamental components of the Semai worldview, which can be glimpsed in the Semai immediate return character. Being an immediate return community essentially means living a “hand-to-mouth” existence, albeit without the negative connotations it carries in English. Rather, it is a way of maintaining personal as well as group autonomy. There is little material accumulation or savings for a rainy day; rather the focus is on living in the present, on having a carefree life and just enough for today. This way of living has its roots in how natural resources are harvested in the forest. The small-scale and sustainable character of Semai agriculture, hunting and foraging follow the principles of taking only what is needed and always sharing what is brought back from the forest with the community.
The Semai concept of living well is caaq samaaq (“eat together”), which communicates the idea that everyone has the right to food and nobody should ever go hungry. This means that while there are richer and poorer people in Semai villages, nobody is ever destitute. Semai say as much by pointing out that there are no Semai beggars in their villages.
Moreover, there is a sense that because humans and non-humans alike carry a soul, they must be respected and never treated as though they were hopeless and discardable. Even though animal domestication is rare among Teew War Semai, animals from the forest are regularly adopted and cared for. These wild creatures are brought into the home, fed, loved and then set free in the forest after some time.
For Semai and Bishnoi, hope and resilience are present in the proactive decisions they make on a daily basis. For Bishnoi, it is playing an active role in defending the lives of animals. For Semai, it is how they continue to care for the trees, plants and animals in the forest. These communities’ peaceful and respectful co-existence with nature completes the picture of environmental conservation in protected areas: in fact, with the right supports in place, they may more effectively protect nature than state or private bodies.
This piece is based on a paper presented at the 2026 Finnish Society for Development Research Conference in Helsinki, Finland.
Karen Heikkilä is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Viikki Tropical Resources Institute, University of Helsinki. She has a background in geography and teaching, and an interest in indigenous life projects, oral tradition and functional literacy/numeracy education. Her current research addresses UNESCO World Heritage Sites intersecting with indigenous territories.
Geethanjali Mariaselvam is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki. She holds an MSc in Agriculture and has 20 years’ work experience in the Government of India forestry sector. Her PhD research focusses on public participation in Protected Areas conservation, in the context of rural Punjab.
Image: by the authors
Note: This article gives the views of the authors, not the position of the EADI Debating Development Blog or the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes