Paper short abstract:

The present authors successfully applied indigenous knowledge and promoted socio-cultural activities of concerned tribals in restoration of some forests in Burdwan District of West Bengal State in India The nature seemed to allow a harmony of manipulation with self designing capacity of the nature.

Paper long abstract:

Forest, one of the most depleted natural resources, necessitates immediate worldwide restoration. The tropical deciduous Sal forests in Burdwan district of West Bengal State in India are highly degraded with species diversity impoverished mainly by overexploitation of phytoresources and soil erosion. Considering the importance of indigenous knowledge and culture in ecosystem optimization the present work applied the principle of socio-cultural promotion of the self-designing capacity of nature in ecorestoration of selected forests under Durgapur Range of Burdwan Forest Division. The tree species of concern in cultural traditions of the local Santhal community were selected by their priests for planting in addition to the existing ones since self- sustainability of a forest ecosystem depends greatly on the direct man-plant relationship including the anthropological influences of the ambient biodiversity. During restoration, some trees were earmarked by the priests as sacred for worship in different seasons.

Changes in ecological parameters as Biological Spectrum, habit analysis and Jaccard's Generic Co-efficient of the forest in temporal scale revealed microclimatic optimization of the regeneration niche i.e. summation of all favourable conditions for germination, growth and establishment of tree-seedlings. The nature seems to permit the ongoing activities to proceed towards a dynamic equilibrium in harmony with the ethnic communities for sustainable optimization of the forest and its characteristic phytoclimate.

Key words: Ethnobotanical, Ecorestoration, Forest, Indigenous knowledge, Socio-cultural