The Study Area

Our research took place in the Epirus region of northwest Greece in the municipalities of Zagori and Konitsa, where we have located and studied SNS, especially sacred forests, over the past twenty years. Zagori—“the land behind the mountain,” as it is defined by the etymology of its Slavic name (Oikonomou 1991, 489)—is a complex of forty-five villages located in the Pindos mountain range, particularly around the Tymfi massif (its highest peak is Gamila at 2,497 meters). Konitsa municipality includes the town of Konitsa, forty-four villages, and most of the area of two mountains: Smolikas, the second highest mountain in Greece (highest peak 2,637 meters) and Grammos (highest peak 2,520 meters). The landscape of the area is characterized by dramatic geological formations, in particular the Vikos and Aoos gorges. Emblematic rivers, such as the Aoos and its tributaries Voidomatis and Sarantaporos, together with Vjosa in Albania, form one of Europe’s last free-flowing wild rivers (Kati et al. 2019, 5), while the most extensive natural oak and black pine forests of Greece characterize the area. A large altitudinal range (400 to 2,637 meters) within a small area combined with mountainous terrain and geological complexity create a high diversity of biotopes of great ecological value and conservational importance. The natural heritage of the area has been recognized with the designation of the Northern Pindos National Park (2005), the largest montane national park of Greece, incorporating the older National Forests of Pindos (1966) and Vikos–Aoos (1973), the Vikos–Aoos UNESCO Geopark (2010), and eleven Natura 2000 sites (Bendermacher-Gerousi et al. 2022, 39–42).

Human presence in the area is evident from the Upper Paleolithic (16,000 years ago). Throughout history, the inhabitants appropriated and domesticated the landscape and even used the steep slopes of the mountains and the Vikos gorge as places of residence. However, most cultural remains are of post-Byzantine origin, including private and public buildings and entire villages protected via national laws and presidential or ministerial edicts as traditional stone-built settlements. In addition, the area is characterized by a remarkable preindustrial infrastructure and transportation network that reflect its prosperity during the period of the Ottoman occupation (1430–1913) (Bendermacher-Gerousi et al. 2022, 52–57, 183). During this period, the villages of Zagori and some of Konitsa enjoyed a kind of “autonomy” and associated privileges (Nitsiakos, Arapoglou, and Karanatsis 1998, 479–80; Nitsiakos 2008, 31). This conferred status and wealth, coupled with high levels of prosperity resulting from remittances based on male emigration, mainly during the eighteenth century, to Europe, Africa, and later the United States (Dalkavoukis 1999, 19–28), as was typical for many agro-pastoral communities in the Balkans (Mazower 2002, 21, 14). Similarly, the inhabitants of the Sarantaporos valley in Konitsa turned to technical specialization (eighteenth to nineteenth centuries) and traveled within and beyond the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire. Likewise, the town of Konitsa served as a commercial center, with its well-known bazaar functioning as a channel for exchange between different people and cultures (Nitsiakos, Arapoglou, and Karanatsis 1998, 71, 164–65). In addition, the area has long been used by Vlach and Sarakatsani transhumant pastoralists, who still use the extensive alpine meadows as summer pastures, debunking the myth of the isolation of the mountains. Since the Second World War, population decline and rural exodus have resulted in the abandonment of traditional agricultural activities, demographic aging, and some villages engaging almost exclusively in tourism-based activities. These profound changes characterize both Zagori and Konitsa municipalities, as well as most communities in rural Greece. Nonetheless, the long coexistence of people and nature has created a unique cultural landscape. In September 2023, the cultural landscape of Zagori was inscribed in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites (UNESCO 2023).

The Research

The idea of studying SNS in Epirus originated in 2000 during an ethnographic survey in Mikro Papingo village (West Zagori), where we discovered that some forest areas were never cut for wood or timber because of the fear of supernatural punishments (Stara 2000, 76). This was in accordance, as we later discovered, with a rich bibliography on the relationship between trees and the world of spirits (e.g., Imellos 1999, 75–81; Milingou-Markantoni 2006, 104–61; Nitsiakos, Arapoglou, and Karanatsis 1998, 477–78; Politis [1904] 2015, 218–21; Roussounidis 1988, 177–81).

Then, during the work for her PhD thesis, Kalliopi Stara (2009) studied twenty-three villages in central and west Zagori and found that centuries-old solitary trees or groves in the vicinity of churches or more extensive sacred forests were a common element of the cultural landscape of the area. From 2012–15, an interdisciplinary project named THALIS–SAGE: “Conservation through Religion: The Sacred Forests of Epirus,” which involved thirty-eight scientists from different universities and institutions worldwide, expanded the research to eastern Zagori and Konitsa, aiming to find the history, ethnography, and importance to biodiversity conservation of the sacred forests of the area. Archival sources were investigated in the local communities, the Forestry Services of Ioannina, Metsovo, and Konitsa, the Metropolis of Ioannina, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in order to enrich and verify the results of the ethnographic survey.

This article is an account of the findings of the growing body of evidence on sacred forests in Epirus.

Sacred Trees and Forests in the Villages of Epirus

Trees of the Periphery

Around the periphery of each village, small xoklissia (outlying churches) or eikonismata (icon stands) accompanied by centuries-old solitary trees or small groves, define the village’s boundary. These xoklissia and their impressive trees are conceptualized in the Greek cultural landscape as “liminal” places that create a visual border between the village as a place for community and sanctified domesticated nature, where the powers of the sacred world dominate, and the dangerous wilderness as a place of supernatural forces in their elemental form, where demons often make their home (Du Boulay 2009, 54–56; Nixon 2006, 8). They thus serve as boundary markers and function as natural portals between village life and the external world. During the Ottoman times, some xoklissia also served as lazarettos (isolation hospitals) for returning travelers to prevent epidemics entering the village (Stara 2009, 208). These sites also served as the places where villagers said their last farewells to departing migrant sons; thus, occasionally the trees were called klapsόdentra (literally “cry trees”). Elsewhere in northern Greece, the protective power of boundary trees used to be reinforced every year during the special ceremony of ipsomόs (the placing of holy bread by the priest in a crevice in their trunks). Ιpsomόs is often accompanied by a litany (a liturgical procession of the holy icons) on a regular basis (i.e., the second day of Easter) or in cases of emergency (Kyriakidou-Nestoros 1989, 33–34). Analogous ceremonies also occur in other Balkan countries, such as Serbia (Đorđević, Dragan, and Dragišić 2023, 37–39) and North Macedonia, where the trees are known as Panagii (the Virgin) (Rantasa 2012, 84).

The arrangement of xoklissia or eikonismata with their attendant trees around the village is also significant and thought to invisibly enforce the natural boundaries of the settlement. They may either mark the main entrances with an outlying church and its trees at the four points of the compass, thus forming the sign of the cross, or be placed to encircle the village in an imaginary protective circle, in both cases creating a sense of security for the inhabitants (see Figure 1); Lagopoulos 2002, 92–102, 135, 145).

Figure 1: Examples of the circled village Vrysochori (a) and the crossed village Iliohori (b) in East Zagori. Locations marked by crosses are churches accompanied by centuries-old trees. Outlying churches define village boundaries and serve as access routes that cross the village boundary, marking “entrances” to the village. Background cognitive maps were created by Ioannis Tsolakis (2004), funded by the villages’ cultural associations, and placed at villages’ entrances. The area of the village Vrysochori is ~19.3 hectares, while the area of the village Iliochori ~16 hectares.

Different species of oaks (Quercus pubescens, Q. frainetto, Q. petraea, Q. cerris and Q. trojana), particularly the evergreen prickly or kermes oaks (Quercus coccifera), and maples (Acer monspessulanum, A. opalus, A. pseudoplatanus and A. platanoides) are the most common trees that accompany the outlying churches of the villages in Epirus. The abundance and variety of oaks and maples in their natural habitat, especially in Zagori, along with their imposing character and enormous value for the local economy (Stara, Tsiakiris, and Wong 2015b, 160), justify their position within the precinct of the house of God, i.e., next to the church. On the contrary, conifers, mainly black pines and firs (Abies borisii-regis), are associated with cemeteries. In recent years, funeral cypresses (not indigenous to the area) also tend to be planted in cemeteries, serving as modern mourning symbols (Dafni et al. 2006, 8–9); however, these trees do not always survive the harsh winters of the mountains. Arboreal imagery uses specific tree species as symbols and metaphors of external reality, social life, and spiritual values (Rival 2001, 5–6). Nonetheless, our study revealed it is not the species of tree but rather its age and form (maiden or deliberately shaped for safety or shade reasons) that differentiates sacred from secular trees (or “working,” e.g., coppiced, pollarded, or shredded; Rackham 2006, 2), as taboos against cutting them for wood or fodder and attendant fear of supernatural punishments discourage people from using the timber or foliage of sacred trees.

Apart from their old age and natural shape, church trees often have other functions, such as having bells hung in them or being used as support for benches. Of particular significance are those trees on which crosses have been inscribed or embedded in their trunks, termed stavroména dentra (literally “crossed trees”). Such trees are reported by local people to be symbols protecting the place from lightning and other calamities, indicate vows to the saint to which the nearby church is dedicated, or serve as memorials to the missionary journeys of St Kosmas the Aetolian (1714–79) (Figure 2).

Figure 2: “Crossed trees” of oak, fir, and black pine in Epirus, photographed between 2007 and 2019. © Kalliopi Stara.

Sacred Forests

In addition to individual trees associated with church sites, extensive sacred forests also constitute a characteristic element of the cultural landscape of Epirus. These areas arise from a locally adapted system of forest resource management sanctioned by the church. Almost every village in the area has at least one sacred forest. So far, we have identified seventy-nine sacred forests in the villages in Zagori (fifty-four) and Konitsa (twenty-five) (Table 1 in Appendix) through the inspection of archives and rapid ethnographic surveys. Of these seventy-nine sacred forests, sixteen were selected for more detailed ethnographic research and field visits (Stara et al. 2016). Of these, eight where inventoried to determine their value for biodiversity conservation (Avtzis et al. 2018) and five for detailed dendrochronological assessments (Marini-Govigli et al. 2024) (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Location of the research area in Konitsa and Zagori municipalities in Epirus, northwest Greece. Green diamonds show the sixteen forests where ethnographic surveys were carried out. Green diamonds with white circles show the eight forests in which biodiversity surveys were carried out, and those with a white outline show the five sites for which detailed dendrochronological assessments were conducted. White crosses indicate the locations of the remaining sixty-three sacred forests. The names of each of the seventy-nine sacred forests shown are given in the Appendix. Adapted from Stara et al. (2016).

Sacred Forests: The Adaptation of an Old System to Modern Times

With the exception of the terms kouri and livádi, sacred forests are named locally eklistiastiká or klisiast(i)ká, literally “those belonging to the church.” Another synonym is vakoufik’a or vakoufia from the Arabic waqf, which signifies a bequest from which the income should be used for public benefit (Moutafchieva 1990, 148). Today, the terms “sacred forests” (ierá dási in Greek) and “Sacred Natural Sites” (Ieroi Fysikoi Topoi in Greek) have been adopted by the international scientific community, reflecting a modern identity. The term “sacred,” derived from the Latin sacer and the Hebrew sacire (separate), has been used in Greek folklore to characterize trees that are “haunted” by the supernatural (Stara 2018, 325). The term “forest” (dásos) is also new to the cultural history of the area. It was introduced into the vocabulary of local communities with the establishment of the Hellenic State (1832) and Forestry Services. The term forest is often associated with reforestation initiatives, mainly dominated by pine species and managed by the Forestry Service for timber production or aesthetic values. Over the years, the term forest replaced previously common terms such as lόngos (scrubland), ormáni or roumáni (a forest area interspersed with fields and vineyards), kladerό (a forest used for harvesting tree branches for fodder), or baltaliki (a forest used for harvesting fuel wood) (Nitsiakos 2015, 39–48; Oikonomou 1991, 400). The Forestry Service, despite having formal oversight of all forests, does not officially recognize sacred forests as a special category requiring sensitive management. Therefore, our proposal is the formal legal recognition and designation of sacred forests as distinct sociocultural entities.

The combination of ethnographic and ecological studies has shown that sacred forests in Epirus are distinct socio-ecological systems sensitive to social changes (Marini-Govigli, Efthymiou, and Stara 2021, 7–9). In an assessment based on the criteria of the Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas Specialist Group (World Commission on Protected Areas) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature implemented in 2012 for sixty-five SNS in Zagori, we categorized them all as threatened. This is because even if the majority continue to be respected by local communities, a quarter were either destroyed (11%, seven sites) or in a degraded state (13%, eight sites). Changing patterns of land use and population decline have had a dramatic effect on the region’s social structure, resulting in the collapse of local management systems. Modernization and ignorance of their existence outside local communities has led to SNS being threatened where there is conflict with modern life’s necessities (Sacred Natural Sites 2012). Moreover, without the active protection afforded by their sacred status, many sacred forests would not have survived in the flammable conditions of the Mediterranean landscape. Today, land abandonment and rapid vegetation succession, together with climate change, make sacred forests vulnerable to forest fires, especially if they become surrounded with a matrix of dense evergreen scrubland, as was the case for the protective forest of Agia Paraskevi in the village of Ano Pedina in central Zagori, which accidentally burned in August 2000.

The threatened status of SNS in Epirus, the challenge to preserve this heritage and keep it alive within communities and between generations, and the urgency of action related to global challenges affecting biocultural diversity (Verschuuren et al. 2010, 11–12) motivated us to propose the sacred forests of Epirus for inclusion in the national index of Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO) (Stara 2022, 120). The proposal was submitted by the University of Ioannina (Department of Biological Applications and Technology, Laboratory of Ecology and Department of History and Archeology, Faculty of Folklore), supported by the municipalities of Zagori and Konitsa and organizations related to the conservation and promotion of natural and cultural heritage of the area (Northern Pindos National Park, Vjosa/Aoos River Ecomuseum, Zagori Ecomuseum, Zagori Development Agency) or active with the SNS (Delos Initiative (World Commission on Protected Areas/International Union for Conservation of Nature), Mediterranean Institute for Nature and Anthropos). The proposal was approved in 2015 (ICH of Greece, 2015) and dedicated to the memory of our beloved colleague Oliver Rackham (1939–2014) with whom we surveyed several sacred forests (Tsiakiris et al. 2024).

In the modern context, the number of people in the villages is dwindling, and the local church institutions do not formally recognize the living components of the sites as having a formal status. Even if their status was better recognized, the local church institutions do not have the resources required for the protection and active conservation management needed to preserve many of the SNS. We therefore suggest the continued protection of the sacred forests requires the acquisition of new identities. This process is occurring even without intervention, as shown in Greveniti (Marini-Govigli, Efthymiou, and Stara 2021) or Vovoussa (Stara 2023), however, we think a modern secular conservation component would strengthen the maintenance of the religious legacy and help it to continue to protect the sacred forests of Epirus. Some of the past values of SNS remain stable, such as their role in providing protection against natural hazards, use as festive places, sense of spirituality, and aesthetic qualities. On the other hand, some of their previous values have lost meaning in modern times, for instance their role as reserves of natural resources (e.g., foliage fodder for use in times of acute shortage of livestock feed), which no longer have value in a context where communities rely on the importation of resources. Simultaneously, new values have developed, such as recognizing the importance of SNS as the oldest form of nature protection worldwide, even if their primary value was different (Zannini et al. 2021, 10), which has led to the present-day recognition of their importance for biodiversity conservation. A good example can be found in the sacred forests of Ethiopia, which are now valued as biodiversity and genetic arks (Aerts et al. 2016; Goodin, Alemayehu, and Lowman 2019, 4) that provide cultural, provisioning, and other services to their communities (Abiyou, Hailu, and Teshome 2015, 127). However, they were initially established to maintain the purity of the holy place based on a cultural logic with the church in its center as an effective portal to the divine, enclosed in a circle of purity (Kent and Orlowska 2018, 117). Like the Ethiopian SNS, the sacred forests of Epirus, despite their small size, have been shown to be important for conservation of different taxonomic groups: fungi, lichens, herbaceous plants, woody plants, nematodes, insects, bats, and passerine birds (Avtzis et al. 2018, 101; Benedetti et al. 2021, 4; Diamandis et al. 2021, 153; Georgiadis et al. 2023, 10).

As well as their conservational importance, there are important similarities between the contexts and statuses of the sacred forests in Greece and the church forests in Ethiopia (Goodin, Alemayehu, and Lowman 2019, 3; Kent and Orlowska 2018, 137). However, in Ethiopia the church has a very active role in the management of these forests, while in Greece sacred forests are mostly cared for by just a few active members of local communities, who number less than fifty inhabitants in most villages, while “modern” church councils in most Greek villages consist only of a few elder members. Usually, church councils do not treat centuries-old trees in church yards and sacred forests as respected, integral elements of the sacred landscape, so their maintenance is not a priority on council agendas. Therefore, while fully respecting the essential role of religion in the development and preservation of the Greek sacred forests up to the present, to protect them in the future, there is a need to add a stronger secular component (i.e., to emphasize the value of these forests for biodiversity and thus the need to integrate them into the modern nature conservation agenda). We note the same trend has also been observed for the Ethiopian church forests over the past fifteen years (e.g., Aerts et al. 2016, 412–13). However, we try to incorporate such secular values (e.g., the importance of biodiversity) as an additional component of the overall value of these forests while continuing to focus on their spiritual or intangible values.

Sacred Natural Sites as an Educational Opportunity

As SNS have been proved to be little known outside their communities (Stara 2022, 132), one of our main concerns has been to preserve and publicize knowledge of them in Epirus and beyond. Thus, we have developed a strategy that includes dissemination events for academia (participation in conferences, publications, networking, lectures, and summer schools), the local communities (participatory fieldwork, participation in local events, articles in local magazines, and other forms of collaboration with the municipality and other local institutions), and the general public (popular publications, environmental education materials, participation in national events on nature conservation and Intangible Cultural Heritage, appearances in press and media events with articles or interviews, frequent posts on social media, filming and creating documentaries, presence in local and national television and radio broadcasting).

In the framework of the THALIS-SAGE project, and to share the results of a scientific project with local communities and the general public, especially teachers and children, we designed an environmental education activities package entitled “Centuries Old Trees, Their Values and Importance for Biodiversity Conservation” (Stara and Vokou 2015, in Greek). The material includes the book The Magnificent Trees of Zagori and Konitsa: Centuries Old Trees, Sacred Trees, Witnesses of Local History and Guardians of Biodiversity, which presents in simple form our scientific results and details about impressive, long-lived trees of the area, their characteristics, functions, values, and importance for supporting other life forms. It also includes literature texts and poems that describes relationships between trees and people, with special attention to material provided by local writers and artists. The book is accompanied by fifteen worksheets for children and corresponding instructions for trainers, a map with information on locating impressive trees and accessible sacred forests in Epirus, and the illustrated fairy tale “The Tree of Our Small World” with graphics designed by Myrto Delivoria (Stara 2015), which, although a work of fiction, was inspired by our ethnographic research. In 2016, these materials received the necessary approval from the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, and copies were distributed to all primary schools in the prefecture of Ioannina, local cultural associations, and other relevant institutions locally and nationally. They are also available for free online (https://www.openbook.gr/ta-aiwnovia-dentra/).

We chose centuries-old trees and not sacred forests as the protagonists of our educational material. This is mainly because, through all our meetings with teachers and other key stakeholders, we came to realize that people tend to associate the concept of sacred forests with the sacred groves of ancient Greek mythology. Therefore, it was difficult to transform the established image of the ancient sacred forest inhabited by deities and nymphs to the sophisticated management system that evolved during the years of the Ottoman occupation, which is the origin of the protection of sacred forests in Epirus. Moreover, ancient trees are now severely threatened while also being prominent features in the landscape, making them easier for people to identify with. They also constitute a familiar image and common experience for teachers and pupils. Their longevity gives them great historical, aesthetic, and recreational value and makes them both stable features in a changing world and symbols of eternity, solidarity, and strength. This transforms them into characters with personality that belong to “a special class that transcends the normal plane of existence” (Cannon, Piovesan, and Munné-Bosch 2022, 1).

Centuries-old trees are of special value as monuments of natural and cultural heritage, functioning as repositories of local history and the particular identity of each community, as well as witnesses of climate change, reservoirs of genetic diversity and survival in extreme environmental conditions, and arks of biodiversity (Cannon, Piovesan, and Munné-Bosch 2002, 7–8; Rackham 2006, 46–49). While charismatic megafauna are used in environmental awareness actions symbolizing nature conservation, the same is not yet true for megaflora (i.e., trees and forests) (Hall, James, and Baird 2011, 310), even if centuries-old trees are highly visible and charismatic rare organisms being lost globally at an alarming rate (Piovesan et al. 2022, 1025).

Through our educational work, we have disseminated the idea of sacred forests beyond the narrow audience of scientists. The topic of sacred forests and trees has, since 2012, been taught in summer schools (e.g., the Greek Summer School in Conservation Biology entitled Biodiversity: Theory and Practice (2012–19) and the Konitsa Summer School on Anthropology, Ethnography and Folklore of the Balkans (2014–19)). Since 2016, the topic has also been included in the elective undergraduate courses Cultural Ecology and Field Ecology in the Department of Biological Applications and Technology of the University of Ioannina, which include field visits, as well as in masters-level modules at Bangor University (UK) and the University of Lleida (Spain).

In recent years, more and more local communities, through their cultural associations, have started efforts to promote the importance of sacred forests as part of local history through talks, events, and publications. In 2022, the broadcast of “ERT Green Stories” by the national television channel ERT3, directed by Vangelis Efthymiou (2023), included a program dedicated to the sacred forests of Epirus, while the documentary “The Wild Beauty of the Balkans” for ARTE TV (2023), directed by Jeremy József Pierre Fekete (in German), dedicated an episode to Greece in which the coverage of Epirus focused on its geological history and SNS.

Sacred Natural Sites as a Conservation Opportunity

In Greece, by mid-2021, legislation had recognized sixty-nine “Monuments of Nature to be Preserved,” which are related to forests or other areas of great value, be it ecological, paleontological, geomorphological, or other. This list included fifty individual trees, small clusters of trees, or forests, many associated with religious life. More recently (2022), the sacred trees in Kato Olympos of Saint Cosmas the Aetolean, who visited the area in 1765, as well as the sacred forest of Agioi Theodori in Rapsani, also in Thessaly, are on the tentative list of the national index of Intangible Cultural Heritage, waiting for approval from the Greek Ministry of Culture (Intangible Cultural Heritage of Greece 2022). However, active protection of centuries-old trees has been rare in Greece, and, despite their imposing presence, these trees often seem neglected and vulnerable, usually absent from nature or culture management plans, policies, and nature conservation projects (Blicharska and Mikusiński 2014, 1559). Nevertheless, there is a rapidly growing recognition of the importance of these veteran trees (Parker and Lewington 2012) and the need to create “disturbance refugia” for their survival (Lindenmayer, Laurance, and Franklin 2012, 1306). The UK is the best example, having detailed records of >200,000 ancient trees based on a formal protocol for recording trees (Piovesan et al. 2022, 1027) and involving citizen scientists in the recording of trees of special interest (Nolan et al. 2020, 3105; Woodland Trust 2025).

Reviewing the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage related to nature worldwide, we identified a set of threats that includes natural disasters, globalization, cultural homogenization, and unregulated tourism (Intangible Cultural Heritage, n.d., 6, 8). Concerning tourism, one of the challenges for the elements of Intangible Cultural Heritage is their change from the invisible to the visible, the obscure to the important, and the local to the international. Their exposure to a global audience via the internet creates vulnerability and redefines the relationship between tourism and cultural heritage from one of complementary mutual reinforcement to tourism (especially “experience tourism”) being a source of risk to cultural heritage (Drinis 2022, 37–38) and even to “extreme spirits” being offered as “spiritual antidotes” to modern life (Johnston 2005, 113–17). Thus, it is a paradox that at the same time as sacred forests are gaining visibility via the mass media and internet, many are losing their visibility in the landscape. As a consequence, while individual sacred forests could serve as “conceptualized cultural codes imprinted in the landscape” (Colding and Folke 2001, 590), today homogenization threatens the diversity of both cultural and natural landscapes. Land abandonment is the driving force that transforms the open mosaics of the cultural landscape of the past to impenetrable scrubland due to natural vegetation succession in several rural areas in the Mediterranean (Grove and Rackham 2001, 235). This natural recovery of forest has obscured the distinct past landscapes, hiding sacred forests within a continuum of forest cover. Nonetheless, they can still be revealed by careful investigation. Reviewing aerial photographs from 1945, we found that at that time, sacred forests were very distinct in the landscape as patches of tree cover within a largely treeless matrix, similar to the situation of the sacred forests of the Ethiopian highlands today (Aerts et al. 2016, 406; Klepeis et al. 2016, 7600) (Figures 4 and 5).

Figure 4: The protective sacred forests Megala Pournária (big prickly oaks) and Anilia (non-sunny) of the village Kato Pedina in Zagori. In the aerial photo from 1945 (a), the forests are distinguished as patches within the matrix of treeless, overgrazed vegetation, while the village is rather invisible. In the aerial photo from 2007 to 2009 (b), the sacred forests can still be distinguished due to the crowns of their large trees, however they are no longer distinct patches and are instead embedded within a continuum of forest cover that has grown up over the past fifty years through vegetation succession.

Figure 5: The protective sacred forest Trafos (ditch) of the village Molista in Konitsa. In the aerial photo from 1945 (a), the forest is distinguished as a patch within the matrix of cultivated land. In the aerial photo from 2007 to 2009 (b), the sacred forest is part of a continuum of forest cover that has grown up over the past fifty years through vegetation succession.

In Epirus, as in many other places around the world, SNS constitute the oldest form of nature conservation, hosting distinctive vegetation communities and forest structures (Marini-Govigli et al. 2020, 63) with limited human impacts over the past 400 years and old-growth characteristics (Tsiakiris et al. 2024). This creates an opportunity for sacred forests that host centuries-old trees to be assigned an extra value in conservation prioritization as old-growth forests (defined by European Commission 2023, 6–7). Old-growth forests are among the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems and are especially rare in Europe, where it has been estimated that, along with the small area of truly primary forests, they represent less than 3% of the EU’s forest area (European Commission 2023, 5). Thus, sacred forests could be incorporated into a broader national and European policy context within the framework of the 2020–2030 European Forest Strategy, of which old-growth forest preservation is one of the main pillars (European Parliament 2022, 19).

There are, moreover, opportunities for sacred forests to be designated as a heritage forest conservation network, e.g., as UNESCO “mixed heritage sites” containing elements of both natural and cultural significance or as “other effective area-based conservation measures” (IUCN, n.d). These are synergistic with the rising appreciation of the wider values of SNS (Roux et al. 2022, 8) while recognizing the potential trade-offs between the materiality of biodiversity conservation and consideration of nature’s meaning in an ethical context (Dudley, Higgins-Zogib, and Mansourian 2009, 574). This is a contemporary challenge being addressed through recent trends to include cultural values such as beauty, silence, tranquility, and spirituality in the development of new strategies for natural heritage conservation (Mallarach and Verschuuren 2019, 152–53). This also provides an important rationale for SNS, such as those in Epirus, across Europe, and worldwide, to be safeguarded for both spiritual and natural heritage conservation through new approaches that are fully integrated with existing religious legacy and church institutions.

SNS in Epirus have a special status. Legally, they belong to the state or the municipality, and their protection and management is the responsibility of the local Forestry Service. However, in people’s conscience, their management is associated with the church. The Orthodox Church, and especially Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, places ecological issues at the center of ministry, taking initiatives such as the offer of prayers for the preservation of the natural creation (established in 1989 by Patriarch Dimitrios) every first day of the new ecclesiastical calendar (September 1st) and the organization of an international interdisciplinary dialogue on the responsibility and obligation to find tangible ways of healing the natural environment (Chryssavgis 2013, 153). At this level, Orthodox theologians are attempting a new interpretation of biblical texts and a new worldview where “eco despair” is replaced by action (Theokritoff 2010, 155). There is potential for the church to be further involved in discussion of the interrelated spiritual and ecological crises (Votrin 2005, 11), helping to promote a conservation morality based on the human responsibility for the upkeep and management of nature (Bhagwat, Dudley, and Harrop 2011, 237). In this discourse, both clergy and lay members of the church could be involved within Christian institutions, enabling new pathways for communication between the church, local communities, conservationists, and scientists. In the case of the SNS of Epirus, this is something we plan to contribute to in the next stage of our work. The development of a plan to safeguard these SNS that integrates the conservation and religious institutional components to produce a viable management plan for each forest can motivate a community-based and participatory conservation strategy, incorporating the institution and values of the church, respecting the long historical continuity and specific identity of SNS, and focusing not only on environmental conservation but also on the search for a sense of the spiritual that people increasingly associate with the grandeur of nature.