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A bard sings a folklore, a priest performs a rite while young Khasi girls in bright yellow costumes and boys in sparkling white dhotis gently sway to the rhythmic beat of the Ksing (drum). The soft glow of their golden headgear is as soothing as the notes of the tangmuri (flute) playing in the background. An overwhelming sense of tradition rents the air but it's the future that is being celebrated. A future with a rich green cover.

Increasingly in Meghalaya, Shad Nongkrem, the ancient tribal dance, and other long-forgotten customs are gaining currency for the most unlikeliest of reasons, namely afforestation. It is an effort by a band of activists to preserve the endangered law kyntang, the 79 sacred groves across the hilly north-eastern state. Of the 79, 48 are in east Khasi, 15 in Jaintia, eight in east Garo and eight in west Garo.

For centuries, superstition ensured that no one set foot on these rich oak and rhododendron patches. No one plucked a leaf, not even a blade of grass, in the mortal fear of angering the presiding deity. There are many tales of what became of those who did; of how tigers and snakes, the guardian spirits of the groves, extracted a price in terms of suffering and death.

But with the passage of time and mass conversions to Christianity, old beliefs gave way to new. These groves were no longer considered sacred and, like any other patch of forest land, became targets of exploitation. Villagers began to regularly source firewood from these areas. Soon they also turned to the groves for rare species of flora like Lindcase Cultrata, the scented grass that is used for making perfumes and pot-pourri.

It was a relentless plunder. And it was only in the 1990s that the greens among the locals began to see red. The depletion of the invaluable forest cover could not go on. Their significance was not only biological but also anthropological. In 1992, a young Khasi poet and folklorist, Desmond L. Kharmawphlang, along with a German sculptor, Thomas Kaiser, met the Syiem (chief) of Khyrim, the largest of the Khasi states, and decided to regenerate the sacred groves.

The task, they knew, would not be easy. Restoring the groves to their lost glory invariably meant links with the past. Their forefathers, the Khasis realised, were perhaps the earliest environmentalists. All those rituals, those beliefs they had sworn by, were only to preserve the forest cover for posterity. Superstition no longer held but long-abandoned customs were revived to regenerate the groves.

Soon the effort became a movement. A Switzerland-based artists' group, besides academics and intellectuals from Shillong too joined in. There has been no looking back ever since. According to B.K. Tiwari, reader and head of the department at the Centre for Environmental Studies, North Eastern Hill University which identified the 79 groves, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, a subsidiary of the World Bank, is also providing assistance in reviving these sacred groves.

What is significant is that it is a "people's programme". Explains Balvinder Singh, principal chief conservator of forests, Meghalaya: "Since the tribal clans own and administer these sacred groves, they want no interference from the Government. But if they approach us for any kind of help, we would gladly oblige." The sacred groves of Meghalaya hold lessons not just from the past but also the present.

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