Forests Held in Trust
Across Naga villages, certain forest patches have been preserved as sacred groves for generations — areas where felling trees, hunting or even entering without ritual permission is traditionally prohibited, governed by customary law rather than government regulation. These groves are typically associated with village deities, ancestral spirits or significant historical events, embodying an indigenous conservation ethic that predates modern environmentalism by centuries.
Khonoma village, recognised as India's first green village, exemplifies this tradition at its most developed — a community that voluntarily banned hunting and adopted sustainable land practices rooted in ancestral spiritual relationships with the forest. These sacred groves represent a living, functioning model of indigenous land stewardship increasingly recognised by conservationists as among the most effective community-based conservation systems in the world.
