A organization dedicated to the preservation of indigenous traditions dating to pre-Christian times has bestowed an award on folkways researcher Mari-Ann Remmel for her work to protect ancient sacred groves, ERR reported.
In the late 1990s, Remmel was instrumental in bringing logging to a halt in the Lehmja oak grove outside Tallinn. She has also contributed to efforts to protect a number of other groves where ancient Estonians worshiped, said the Maavalla Koda organization.
She also published a book, which may be the only one to be devoted solely to sacred groves.
Over 500 groves are known. About a hundred are under protection. Some are still visited by those who bring offerings or worship there.
Maavalla Koda chairman Ahto Kaasik says the sites are mainly in poor or satisfactory condition, as they have borne the brunt of efforts by occupiers and invaders over the centuries to suppress national culture.
But he says they are still an essential link with the past.
"When they come to such a place, people can sense the closeness of their forebears, knowing that they have gone there, prayed there, thought about us," said Kaasik.