Mangaon village is located in Velhe Taluka of Pune District, Maharashtra. This village is remotely situated in the catchment area of the Panshet reservoir along the Western Ghats. In the monsoons, this village gets water-locked on all sides and is inaccessible by road. This area receives a total annual rainfall of approximately 5000 mm. Temperatures range from a low of 9°C in winter to a maximum of 40°C in summer. The village is surrounded by the Western Ghats on one side and the backwaters of Panshet Reservoir on the other. This is mainly a forest ecosystem situated on the crestline of the Western Ghats. The forest under protection is a sacred grove that is revered by the villagers of Mangaon since times immemorial. There are still many sacred groves and protected patches of Reserve Forest along the Western Ghats of Maharashtra (northern Sahyadris), which form a corridor between Bhimashankar and Koyna wildlife sanctuaries in Maharashtra.

People have been conserving the grove since time immemorial. There are no written records of the time for which this grove has been protected, but villagers maintain that their ancestors have been protecting it for at least 600 years. People seldom collect fuelwood from the sacred grove. Collection from the grove is largely restricted to dead and dried wood that has fallen down. No trees are felled in the grove. Non-timber forest produce such as garbi, hirda, beheda and shikekai are collected occasionally.

In the landscape of Panshet catchment, Mangaon sacred grove stands out. Trees with large girth and huge lianas such as Entada, Diploclasia glaucescens and kadu karanda have made the canopy virtually impermeable to the ground.