Sacred groves in the Western Ghats are culturally preserved patches of forests that are rich in diversity owing to protection by several generations of local people, providing excellent examples of community based conservation.  Sacred groves harbour local populations, preserve genetic resources and serve as reference sites and corridors between protected areas.  They are considered to be cornerstones of biodiversity conservation, but are insufficient in scale and number to significantly address many aspects of the management of landscapes and biodiversity.  We studied 13 sacred groves in Pune District that are at present outside the protected areas of the northern Western Ghats, where we employed a simple and rapid biodiversity assessment technique that can be replicated by frontline foresters, local residents and Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs).  Integrating these sacred sites into the conservation network through local support can improve the efficiency for the existing protected area network in this ecologically fragile region.

The impending climate change crisis has stimulated enormous interest in the development of biofuel globally. The supporters of biofuel hail that it is naturally carbon-neutral whereas the critiques argue that the large-scale plantations and production of biofuel based on Jatropha can not only strain agricultural resources but also threaten future food security. India's subsistence farmers are often faced with challenges and constraints of poverty. Foremost among the challenges are the marginal environmental conditions for agriculture often influenced by erratic rainfall, drought, poor soil quality, and unreliable irrigation water supply. In this article, we have presented a case study on the potential to use nonedible seeds from naturally occurring tree species, Calophyllum inophyllum to meet the increasing demand for biofuel production in India.