Read the passage below carefully:
Sacred groves across West Africa have long served as cultural sanctuaries where community taboos restrict timber harvesting, hunting, and agricultural encroachment. While traditionally established to honor ancestral spirits and preserve ceremonial sites, contemporary ecological assessments reveal that these groves function as critical micro-refugia for endangered endemic species amidst widespread deforestation. Their fragmented nature, however, presents significant biological challenges. Isolated by vast stretches of intensive farmland, gene flow between floral and faunal populations across separate groves is severely constrained, increasing the vulnerability of rare species to inbreeding depression. Although local customary governance systems continue to provide strong localized protection, ecologists emphasize that sacred groves cannot replace connected forest networks. Consequently, integrating traditional conservation ethics with modern ecological corridors is essential to ensuring long-term regional biodiversity resilience.
Statement: The central thesis of the passage is that the isolated nature of sacred groves creates severe biological challenges such as inbreeding depression.
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