Summary: Sacred forests are small patches of forest that are preserved and protected from human exploitation. Although they are identified primarily for spiritual or religious purposes, their contribution to biodiversity conservation has been widely debated. Sacred sites are known to harbour greater biodiversity compared to exploited forests, but the patterns are not well known. We studied tree diversity in a remote forested location in eastern India where sacred forests and reserve forests used by people are present. Tree data from eight sacred forest sites and nine reserve forest sites showed that species richness was significantly greater in sacred forests; species diversity and evenness tended to be greater, but these were not statistically significant. Basal area (a measure of aboveground biomass) was significantly greater, mainly due to the greater density of large trees. There were significant departures from the theoretical expectation of stem size density distributions under pure asymmetric competition for both land tenures, which indicated that extraneous mortality increased death rates of large trees under both regimes, but sacred forests had a greater range of stem sizes. Our results suggest that sacred forests can contribute to biodiversity conservation by preserving greater tree diversity than forests subject to human use.

Conserving landscape connections among favorable habitats is a widely used strategy to maintain populations in an increasingly fragmented world. A species can then exist as a metapopulation consisting of several subpopulations connected by dispersal. Our study focuses on the importance of human–wildlife coexistence areas in maintaining connectivity among primary habitats of small ungulates within and outside protected areas in a large landscape in central India. We used geospatial information and species presence data to model the suitable habitats, core habitats, and connectivity corridors for four antelope species in an ~89,000 km² landscape. We found that about 63% of the core habitats, integrated across the four species, lie outside the protected areas. We then measured connectivity in two scenarios: the present setting, and a hypothetical future setting—where habitats outside protected areas are lost. We also modelled the areas with a high risk of human-influenced antelope mortality using eco-geographical variables and wildlife mortality records. Overall, we found that the habitats in multiple-use forests play a central role in maintaining the connectivity network for antelopes. Sizable expanses of privately held farmlands and plantations also contribute to the essential movement corridors. Some perilous patches with greater mortality risk for species require mitigation measures such as underpasses, overpasses, and fences. Greater conservation efforts are needed in the spaces of human–wildlife coexistence to conserve the habitat network of small ungulates.